Stripped
by SlvrSoleAlchmst1
Summary: Lelouch says, "Don't shoot unless you're prepared to be shot," but does a maxim like that apply once Suzaku takes off his clothes? Lelouch finds an attraction slowly stirring both of them. Flirtation between friends is fine, but Lelouch is still Zero, the one Suzaku denies. If their emotions are stripped down, will their bared souls come together, or will hatred just destroy?
1. Lockers

**Author Note:**

_It... is... so weird, and yet so effing wonderful, to be thrust back into this, my favorite fandom - and so quickly I don't even have god damned time to process. I wrote this in a single day, so if it shows, I really do apologize. I usually take MUCH more time. But this was something I needed to write, just for the hell of it. I've watched so much Code Geass lately. And... I wanted to do this for my friends._

_A bunch of them have started to watch Code Geass for the first time, at the same time. It's intense. On all sides, I'm reliving it through them. It's wonderful, to be exposed to that excitement from brand new perspectives. So, in thanks, you guys... have this. It's perfectly harmless, in that it's spoiler free. It's just designed to get you thinking, chewing on the first five or so episodes of the series._

_For the readers who already know my work in terms of this amazing pair... I think you'll find this fic a little different. It's very, very, very close to canon. I even tried to capture all the different moods the show does, from hilarious to angsty, from adorable to dark. I have no effing clue if I succeeded._

_It's just... whoa. It just feels good to write. Holy, holy, holy crap. Enjoy._

* * *

Lelouch held the phone furtively to his ear. "That's why I said, Ohgi, have P1—"

The locker door that led in from the Ashford gym flew open. Lelouch sealed his mouth at once. Someone had arrived.

He hung up his phone, annoyed, which made Ohgi yell words Lelouch just ignored. Zero's order would have to be postponed. Lelouch had calculated wrong, if a student was still wrapping up from class here.

_Tch_. Lelouch should have gone right outside. But he'd been tired, after running laps. To think his gym teacher had caught up to him, before lunch, to tell him his attendance was low. Lelouch hadn't cared, but gym class was the one grade he still struggled to uphold. Better to suffer once, today, than having to enroll in regular make-up classes that would steal from time as Zero. It didn't hurt, to run his laps one day, and spend time changing out of sweaty clothes.

Footsteps came around the lockers. Lelouch glanced down at his Ashford uniform. He'd reassembled himself by now, and appeared to be composed and unsuspicious. Good.

He made his way back to his assigned locker, pretending to have come out from the restrooms.

"Lelouch?"

"Suzaku!" Lelouch exclaimed.

Suzaku's Ashford uniform coat hung half off, draping across his head of tousled hair. The coat was moving in the wrong direction.

Suzaku didn't seem to mind.

"Gym class has ended," announced Lelouch. "Everyone just left. They all changed back into their clothes. There's no need to waste your time."

Suzaku didn't heed his words. He hung his coat neatly and smiled. "I came here for a make-up class. I've missed too much gym now, from being at work."

Lelouch blinked, and realized he should not have been surprised.

"Does a person like you even profit from gym?" he asked, leaning casually near his locker door. When Suzaku wasn't looking, he hid his phone inside it. "The military trains you much harder there, right?"

Suzaku made careful work of the buttons on his shirt. "That isn't the point, though, is it." Lelouch watched him turn and untuck the shirt's bottom, mindful of wrinkles he might need to iron. "It's about the discipline."

Lelouch allowed himself a smile. A wry one. "You're already disciplined."

Something caught his eye. An angry mark. A faded scrape across Suzaku's collarbone.

"You've been hurt," Lelouch intoned.

Suzaku glanced down at his chest. "Oh, that's old. It's already healed. Mostly, I guess. It was from—"

Lelouch maintained an even tone. "From?"

"When they thought I killed his highness, Prince Clovis." Suzaku looked at the ground, as if he were ashamed.

Lelouch's hand twitched, and his hatred boiled up. It had been almost two weeks, since the incident to which Suzaku referred. Britannia…. This was their fault.

Lelouch had known – and all too well – that his friend had been beaten while held and interrogated. But Suzaku, upon coming to school, had focused, and smiled, and put it behind. His body healed shockingly fast, as well. So, to see an injury still showed, that prompted all this pain to be recalled—

"It must have been an awful wound." He tried hard not to let his hatred show.

Suzaku shook his head. "It wasn't broken. My skin just bled. And now I'm fine."

Fine. Because Zero had set him free, and _only_ because Zero had set him free. Otherwise, Suzaku would have been….

Lelouch allowed nothing to show on his face. Yet the longer he stood, as Suzaku undressed, the more he felt sourness churn in his gut. All the pain Britannia had caused Suzaku… and Lelouch had been too caught up in his secret work to help him heal.

"Your body can recover," Lelouch replied, "but that's no reason for you to brush it off."

"Okay, okay," Suzaku said. He stopped his task and met Lelouch's eye. A moment passed. Suzaku fidgeted.

Lelouch realized Suzaku was being shy.

"Are you going to stand there while I…?" Suzaku trailed off.

Suzaku had never been like this, in years before.

"No," Lelouch told him, maintaining his calm. "I'm sorry. I can turn around." He did so, hearing Suzaku sigh. The gentle shift of fabric made Lelouch fold his arms. He frowned. "You aren't hiding anything, are you?" he asked.

Suzaku's careful movements were worrying him. Did Suzaku conceal, perhaps, an injury much greater?

"Hiding?" Suzaku asked. His voice rose. He groaned. "I should have known you would catch me, Lelouch."

Lelouch had to use discipline he wasn't good at, not to turn around.

"I'm trying hard to hide a million yawns." Suzaku's locker door rattled; he'd bumped it. "Don't tell the teacher. My week has been long."

A pang ran through Lelouch's chest. Long, because…. Because, of course, of Zero. Zero had been moving, so Suzaku's side would respond. The military would be ever-ready, on its toes.

"I'm sorry you're so tired," murmured Lelouch. His guilt became regret, and then – because Lelouch loathed to regret his decisions – regret became a curiosity, instead. If Zero was the cause of weariness, of any pain in Suzaku's life, wasn't it _his _responsibility, then – Lelouch's – to ensure that everything could be made right? If he could right this for his friend, there wouldn't be a need for Lelouch to regret his own actions.

He needed to find out whether Suzaku had more bruises. Lelouch glanced at Suzaku's reflection in one of the gray locker doors, out of the corner of his eye.

He ceased to truly think, as he took in what he saw.

Tense, but very muscled shoulders. Tanned, broad, and angular above his exposed back. His waist appeared narrower than Lelouch thought. He wondered if Suzaku had been eating right.

Bare. Suzaku's appearance was bare. Britannia had taken Suzaku apart, and bared him, in this too-intimate way – so they could strap him up in prison.

Lelouch swallowed. He noticed no more injuries.

"Sorry," said Suzaku, "I'll be just a sec. My shoes are— uwah!" He almost fell down.

"Take your time." Lelouch's mind raced. Suzaku…. He should have been too balanced, too much full of stamina to trip. Even if he claimed that he was tired….

What if he was injured in the leg somewhere, or in the knee? What if Orenji – what if Jeremiah Gottwald – had made him crippled, dragging Suzaku to his execution?

No, no. Suzaku wasn't that hurt. Britannia would throw a cripple out of the military at once. Especially a Japanese one. No one liked the Numbers now.

"Aren't you going to take off your pants?" Lelouch didn't care that now Suzaku knew he was looking.

Suzaku pivoted, and Lelouch turned around. They looked at each other across the fat aisle. Green eyes had slipped very wide.

"No," Suzaku said. "I was going to run in them. I'm only going back to my barracks, after this. And besides…."

"Besides?" prompted Lelouch. His gaze drifted down Suzaku's sleek lines. He caught himself and stopped, but his determination thrived.

He _needed_ to know if Suzaku was hurt. To get him undressed seemed to be the best way.

"Milly has everyone on lookout," Suzaku said. He very nearly pouted, and Lelouch let his arms drop.

"The president?"

"Yes. So I've got to be careful. It's kind of a pain, but she has good intentions."

Lelouch found himself grow annoyed.

What did the student council president have to do with what was under Suzaku's clothes? Lelouch started to filter through his options in his mind. Whatever Milly wanted wasn't relevant right now.

He could tell Suzaku there was a rule – that students had to run in their gym shorts all the time. Ah, but Suzaku wouldn't be fooled by that. If he had taken make-up classes like this one before, he must have run at least once without his shorts. What about when he came directly from work, and didn't always fully change out of his military gear? No, no, there should be something else.

"Um, Lelouch?" Suzaku asked.

Lelouch pressed fingers to his head, shielding his face as he concentrated. Bribe. There must be a bribe he could use. But Suzaku's straight-laced personality wouldn't accept that, would it. He could tell Suzaku instead there was something else at stake. Nunnally would look down on them, if they didn't dress properly going to school.

Or maybe Lelouch could ask to _borrow _Suzaku's pants. Yes, he could lie – and say he'd found a hole in his own. He'd say, _I'll have Sayoko mend them by dinner, and then you can come get yours. I'll wash them_. _We can eat with Nunnally._ Then, if Suzaku _did _reveal an injury beneath his Ashford pants, Lelouch would have a good excuse to make him stick around. Sayoko could treat Suzaku, before he left again for the—

No. Suzaku would have to leave directly after class. The military assigned him a curfew at night. The cost of missing that, for an Eleven especially, could land him a beating much worse.

"Lelouch, I should go start my class…."

Lelouch made a dissatisfied noise, deep in the back of his throat. Ridiculous. How could he fail to come up with a plan?

Suzaku was tucking his white shirt away. Lelouch resisted the urge to hit a locker, in his growing blaze of temper. He couldn't let Suzaku go, without providing him with help. He wanted Suzaku to keep in perfect health….

Lelouch's frustration at once knew no bounds. He'd get Suzaku to look at him. Eye contact. Then, he'd say—

What would he say? He'd say, _Take off your clothes? _No. Even worse! Lelouch grit his teeth and pressed his face into his palm. He would never use the Geass on Suzaku anyway, and even if he did, it wouldn't be in such a fashion. Breaking Suzaku's will by force was not a sin that Lelouch wanted to accept. Ever.

Suzaku flexed his arms. He stretched them out over his head. His torso rippled when he moved.

The ripple effect echoed itself in Lelouch's stomach; something fluttered. Damn it. _Damn it._ He only had one option left.

He'd have to go the direct route. Suzaku would forgive him, wouldn't he?

"Well, Lelouch, have fun in math. You're going there next, right?"

This was all Suzaku's fault, for coming in and taking off his shirt. Lelouch's thoughts would not have travelled here. He braced himself for what he had to do.

"Don't just walk away, Suzaku Kururugi!" Lelouch used his deeply commanding, hard voice.

Suzaku paused. He paused and turned around, appearing troubled at the echo that voice caused. Like Zero's? Lelouch slightly lifted his tone. He'd be careful. He took a pace forward.

He advanced, keeping his expression strict, but he couldn't help the faint flush that he knew tinted his cheekbones. "Don't begin to strip," he cried, "unless you are prepared to be stripped yourself!"

"What?"

Cornelia could have burst in, with her knight Guilford, both of them in bikinis; Suzaku would not have reacted at all. His gaze was only for Lelouch – a gaze that was vacant but vaguely appalled. Lelouch registered that perhaps, Suzaku had never been this surprised in his whole life.

Perfect, then. Lelouch latched on to him.

"Ngh—ah! L-Lelou-aaaaAAGH!" Suzaku flailed his arms, trying to keep Lelouch away.

Lelouch's dark hair swung into his eyes. He tossed it aside so he could see, the better to grip Suzaku's belt buckle. A short scuffle displaced his feet, and he stumbled, but still held on.

"It's rude!" Lelouch continued, fighting rigidly with Suzaku's hands. "You can't start something like this and then stop!"

"I-I can't take off my clothes for gym?! Ah—! Lelouch, don't put your hands there!"

"Nngh, you—" Lelouch grunted, darkly, undaunted. "Stop getting in my way, Suzaku!"

Lelouch flung Suzaku's belt aside. In a flopping arch, it sailed into a locker. Suzaku watched it leave – while flushing hot, looking completely mortified.

"Show yourself to me," Lelouch commanded. He yanked Suzaku's pants straight down.

The resulting shout and the tumble of limbs careened them into a bystanding bench. They lost balance; gravity claimed them as one. The floor felt cold, when Lelouch splayed his hands on it to catch himself. He'd barely saved himself a broken nose.

Suzaku had failed to fare so well. His pants, around his ankles, roped his feet together. He said, "Ouch…."

Lelouch, above, looked down on him. The man he'd wanted to lay bare now lied exposed. But not a mark. Not a mark – on Suzaku's long, lean thighs, not on his knees… no lashes on him anywhere. Just a few old scars that Lelouch found, shining almost wetly in the high, florescent lights.

Lelouch ignored the way their breathing mingled. Suzaku had not been hurt. He could relax.

Then Lelouch realized there was one further profit to be had. Revelations might be found, in this dizzy mix-up, regarding an age-old question that Lelouch had wanted answered.

Curiosity took hold and reigned.

He trailed his gaze to Suzaku's hips, to find out which garment it was.

"Annoying," Lelouch muttered instantly. A combination? That was cheating. "Boxer-briefs?"

Suzaku's bright eyes looked overblown. He didn't move a muscle – just stayed splayed on his back. "They're right for any unplanned situations."

Lelouch said "_tch,_" and glanced aside.

"Sp-speaking of which, Lelouch, was it your plan to end up straddling me this way?"

They both stared down again, at the same time; Lelouch's bangs brushed Suzaku's pinkened cheeks. Attention flew to Lelouch's spread legs. Their positioning…. It—

"Aahh!" Lelouch twisted aside.

It was compromising and explicit.

He backed off in a swift retreat, the speed of which he hoped he'd never have to use as Zero – but his heel got caught behind Suzaku's knee.

Lelouch registered a yelp of protest – or concern – but it failed to fully reach him. Instead of rolling off Suzaku, his head met his own locker door. A sharp report like a Knightmare Frame's fire echoed to the ceiling. And it hurt.

Lelouch rubbed his head. "D-damn it…." He shouldn't have been so determined to win. And now, thanks to his stubborn haste, Suzaku would think—

_No, ignore the implications._

Lelouch wondered immediately if the bump would make his Zero mask sit wrong. If the mask went even a little askew, during battle, or during a speech…. Someone might see. And learn. And then—

"—to hurt yourself." Suzaku spoke to him.

The shirtless soldier had climbed up. He looked as fresh and as innocent as a newly opened flower. When had he managed to pull his pants back on?

Lelouch registered Suzaku's hand, extended to him. He frowned, but he took it. Thank god this was over. Not even C.C. could make chaos like that.

"It's okay, Lelouch," Suzaku said. "I think I know the best way to repay them, for making you launch an assault."

"Them?" Lelouch echoed, his mind a great blank. It blanked again at the word choice. _Assault?_

Lelouch decided bravely that the humiliations he suffered at school – caused in part by himself, no doubt, and his preoccupation as Zero – were possibly not worth even his newly acquired and righteous Black Knights.

Suzaku pulled him up, and now they stood against the wall. He tried not to let his eyes flick to bare skin.

"The student council," Suzaku said. "They started this."

"Y-yes," Lelouch managed. Of course, some sort of plot. He'd use it for his cover. Regain dignity. Right now. "It's so much like the president. I'm sure it's all her fault."

Suzaku nodded, seriously. "Mmn." His smooth brow creased. He had an earnest, probing stare.

Lelouch looked down at himself next, and at his ruffled clothes, feeling sloppy and self-conscious. Suzaku said, "We'll let them know, just to be fair – and then request that they destroy all the data. No one else will find out, then."

"Right." Lelouch used his commanding voice. Then he faltered. "Let them know… what?" Suzaku, corrupting data? Such—

Suzaku drew up very close. His hand still wrapped Lelouch's own. Lelouch had not bothered yet to let go. He backed up so his heels touched wall, mortified to find himself being boxed in.

"You wear briefs," Suzaku said, the wisp of his breath sending suggestion ghosting past Lelouch's ear.

Lelouch turned crimson in degrees. He started trembling. "S-S-S-Suzaku!"

He flinched, to shove Suzaku away, but Suzaku had already gone. He was doubled over, chuckling.

Lelouch now tingled. Chuckling _hard_. This grim and stoic Britannian soldier? The one to cause him so much pain since he had denied Zero, and returned to face his charges? Would Suzaku dare to act rashly again, and throw out his own life for what he believed?

When had Suzaku learned to do things recklessly? To whisper near Lelouch's ear….

The wash of reality, in half a second, cleared Lelouch's palate completely. His cheeks cooled. He recomposed. He fixed his coat sleeves, one at a time.

"It isn't funny, Suzaku," he said. "If the president is involved somehow in the private matter of our underwear, we have to get the worst revenge." He smoothed his collar, tracing the fleur-de-lis.

"No we don't. Revenge is wrong."

Suzaku straightened, finally, and wiped away his laugh. His gaze still sparkled like two emeralds, while Lelouch simply looked at his friend with a frown.

"I guess this means the game is over now," Suzaku went on. "And so, like I said, we can just erase data. The game was to find out the student council's preferences and report them, and you were the last one on the list. The points were supposed to go to whoever figured out a preference first... ah, but—"

"Preferences?"

"In underwear. Shirley likes blue pairs, I guess. And Rivalz wears boxers. I think they have stripes…."

Lelouch's eyebrow slowly ticked. While Suzaku carried on, he ground his teeth.

"…ah, but Arthur is a cat. He doesn't wear anything. Do you suppose fur counts, Lelouch, for Arthur's preferences?"

Suzaku was an idiot. An idiot, an idiot….

Lelouch rolled his hand in a fist. "So your plan," he replied, "after I stripped your clothes, was to strip me back, so you could know what I preferred? And then you'd betray it, to the president."

"Except I didn't need to go that far," Suzaku replied. "Because I could already guess what you wear." The glint in his eyes had become a bit deep. It said, _And I confirmed it after the look on your face._

Lelouch regulated his breaths. He couldn't maim Suzaku, for a simple thing like this. "Guessing people's underwear is not a skill to advertise," he advised, with the intention of walking away. Finally.

"Stripping people senseless in the locker room's not, either."

Lelouch's fist fell open, and he started to reply, but suddenly a smile smug with payback twisted up his mouth.

"'Senseless?'" He made sure to purr. "How flattering, Suzaku." Dark.

"Yeah. You really caught me off guard," Suzaku said, the barb of innuendo passing sweetly by. "Not even the army can actually—uwaaagh!"

Lelouch sprung and seized Suzaku's waist, yanking on one belt-loop of his freshly-donned black pants.

"I'll do it again," Lelouch replied, ignoring that surely his expression waxed maniacal. Furious, brimming with vengeance, and flustered. "This time I'll take pictures, and the president can keep it in her personal file!"

"That's— Lelou—! Ah, aah! D-don't!"

"I said 'don't strip,' to you, didn't I, Suzaku… unless you were prepared to be—"

"—stripped!" He knew. "But that's the line that I'm supposed to use on you! Y-you can't strip others unless you know you'll be stripped back…." Suzaku spun them, and came out the barrier that plastered Lelouch to the wall, again.

Lelouch's coat was pulled away. He yelled.

"Mmffgh—" Suzaku held him down, despite Lelouch's windmill arms. "I'm doing what you said! You should follow your own rules."

"You're not being fair, just relying on your brawn!" Suzaku's warm and supple hand slid down Lelouch's abdomen. It caused a melting hitch of breath that nearly stopped his heart. He thrashed.

They left the wall; they needed room.

The locker room door hissed open, at the same time one of the benches went over. A resounding crash drowned out their shouts.

For the second time, Lelouch rubbed his head, but this time he looked up from on his back.

His white Ashford dress shirt clung to him, damp. Its buttons gaped open, falling askew. Suzaku's hand rested near his skin, fisted tightly in the article of clothing.

"Oh _my_," Lelouch heard. He cursed.

Suzaku's thigh pressed close between his legs. Lelouch's heart was pounding, hard. He wet his lips, and closed his mouth, to mask his light pants of exertion. Curse Suzaku's prime physique….

Milly folded both her arms beneath her ample chest, as if she knew the movement added somewhat to the debauched tone. "Oho~! Suzaku, you've done well, to catch the last one on our list."

Footsteps thudded down the hall. Shirley, Kallen, and Rivalz came to flank her.

"Now let's all see what our vice president wears!"

Shirley yelped. "B-b-but! Lelou—"

"Hah," said Rivalz, "Hey Lelouch, does this make you a bottom guy?"

"I'll kill you, Rivalz," Lelouch murmured, while Kallen said demurely, "It seems a bit too harsh, to expose someone here."

Suzaku withdrew his hands, and Lelouch finally breathed, but the pressure on his hips did not let up. Suzaku still hovered over Lelouch, but now, perhaps, it was a bit protectively. Lelouch stared at Suzaku's profile from the ground.

His friend said flatly to Milly Ashford, "Ms. President, removing someone's clothes without consent is wrong."

"Ehh?! So you won't do it, after all?" Milly hid her grin behind a hand.

"I humbly decline to strip Lelouch."

Suzaku bowed. Lelouch noted the soft curve of his ear.

Lelouch remained a victim, limp, too shocked to wriggle out from underneath his friend. His flush came back, and he wished he had more strength. "You say that now, you hypocrite," he rasped, "but a moment ago…."

"It was all in fun, Lelouch." Suzaku's countenance had wiped itself blank, in a surprising display of self-possession and control. He offered Lelouch a hand up. Lelouch couldn't analyze Suzaku's pacific tone.

Was it possible… that Suzaku also felt—? And had, right now, to pretend it wasn't there?

Lelouch paled. He backed away a step.

_Don't. Deny the implications._

Deny them… or make sure that Suzaku joined the Black Knights, at any cost, and very soon. Lelouch caught himself thinking it, and wondered if the Geass made him madman-crazy. What kind of will would Lelouch have to bend, to procure loyalty from someone so opposed to Zero's rule? Suzaku would choose Britannia, even if that choice killed him….

Fool.

Lelouch took in his friend with sharper eyes. Suzaku fetched his shirt back from his locker, glancing at the clock. Too late now, for his make-up class?

Suzaku covered himself again before the student council. Lelouch's fingers twitched, watching Suzaku move.

"I guess that's that, then." Milly sighed. "I'm sorry, Shirley. Now you'll never know—"

"A-ah! WAAAH—!" Shirley seized the nearest item – Lelouch's rumpled gym shorts, from his locker that still hung open – and stuffed it in the president's face.

Kallen made a choking noise. Rivalz, stricken, said, "That isn't kosher." The blue-headed boy followed them when Shirley shoved Milly back in the hall. "H-hey, Shirley! The prez has to breathe…."

"Your shorts, Lelouch," Suzaku said, stunned, while everybody swiftly left. Lelouch didn't reply anything back.

Kallen, the last one there, looked between the two of them. Lelouch, happy to focus his attention somewhere else, thought he detected a blush tint her cheeks.

"What's the matter?" he asked, making it mild. He hoped this had helped Kallen kill her suspicions that he'd been at Shinjuku, and might be linked to Zero. Terrorists – rebellion leaders – didn't engage in locker room brawls.

"Please be more appropriate at school," Kallen said, and slammed the door behind her as she left.

For one long moment, not a word was said.

Lelouch looked up, eventually, and found Suzaku smiling. A deep and emerald field of sunshine. Endless breeze. That was Suzaku's eyes. Lelouch tried not to end up lost.

"Learned your lesson?" Suzaku asked. He was trying to joke, but the tone came tentative.

Lelouch realized what they had done. Juvenile messing around, a game, that had bordered too close to a shocking attraction. And an attraction….

If it really was that, Lelouch vowed, he'd take the burden on himself. Suzaku didn't need to know, or need to think about it, or bear that weight himself.

Lelouch said, choosing a light, constructive tone – one that harked back to their years at the shrine, and told Suzaku firmly that nothing had changed – "I learned my strip skills should be faster next time."

Suzaku appeared taken aback. Then he laughed. He told Lelouch he had to get back to the military ground.

Lelouch walked his friend to the gold Ashford gates, and didn't move until Suzaku's distant form was gone.

He traced his burning Geass eye. "I'll find a way to strip you – of Britannia, Suzaku," he murmured. "Deny Zero for now. But, to get you on my side…. Perhaps I'll lay you very bare, so that you're mine… and then that man, my father, won't be able to take more from me."

C.C. came around from the bushes to the side. "Oh?" she cooed. "Did something happen with your boy?"

Lelouch shot her an acrid glare over his nose. But he didn't scold her for being outside. He merely watched her pick a strand of pizza cheese out of her vivid hair.

"Isn't it nice, thinking love might devour fate? It's usually the other way around," C.C. replied. Her voice drifted from light to dark. "Be careful, if you're pressing him, Lelouch."

"C.C., don't pretend you know the bounds and limits of my friendship with him. What I do doesn't affect the things he wants. I can only save his life right now, not change his mind." He tried to deny that the truth of it stung.

But he had time yet, to work it all out. He had time.

He walked across the lawn, to tell Sayoko to start making Nunnally's dinner.

"Hmm?" said C.C., to the sky. "It seems you might be right about that. Lelouch is the one getting stripped, in the end. He doesn't like to be denied." The breeze rustled the leaves nearby. "Don't tell me, you think he's not prepared? Well then, what was all his talk about back there? Don't shoot or strip, unless you're prepared…."

"Hurry up, C.C.," Lelouch called.

Together they went back inside.


	2. Rainbows

**Author Note: **_This chapter contains very minor spoilers if you haven't yet seen through episode 11. Also, the story keeps turning out more humorous than I think it will. The temptation for shenanigans is just so... I CAN'T TAKE THIS SERIES SERIOUSLY ANY MORE. I've loved it for too long. I really have. Even the most soul-tearing things become funny after a while._

_Hmn, but not all of them. Not all, for Code Geass._

_...That's why I can say with confidence that after this chapter, the work will take a darker turn. (Also probably a hotter one.) Not that I won't make occasion to laugh, but yeah. So... I'm sorry I'm taking it so lightly for right now, especially in that I'm not even writing as cleanly as I could be, but sometimes, fanfiction is only about the fun. Bear with me, and I promise it'll feel better as it goes deeper!_

_Yes, you are supposed to make yaoi puns with that._

* * *

Running around the school promoting rainbows seemed a great way for Suzaku to get himself bullied some more.

"And so," Milly had called, over the intercom – Lelouch remembered it now, in sharp detail – "the person who spreads the most rainbow across Ashford for Pride Day will help their club win a prize…."

Lelouch had clapped a palm against his head. But by some act of deep restraint or possibly of God, he'd convinced himself he'd accomplish nothing but a headache if he fought for reasons why he alone ought not to be made to comply. There had been better uses for the churning mind of Zero, like deciding at last what kind of hanger Zero's cape should rest on, to maintain that curling fabric shape, and why. And so, Lelouch had mostly sat, and watched Suzaku say, "Yes!" to all Milly's demands. Suzaku had scooped up piles of pink, purple, and _rainbow_ – oh-so-rainbow – chalk. He'd also given Arthur a rainbow-striped sock for his tail.

Lelouch had wondered how many bullying complaints he'd have to file – for the sake of his friend, afterward, despite knowing Suzaku would not want complaints voiced at all. Lelouch would have to do it on the sly.

And now? Now they all strung colors up around the school. Also inside the locker rooms. Lelouch would not acknowledge implications.

The nightmare of the whole event was thanks to Nina. She had asked about the princess.

"D-do you suppose," the pig-tailed girl had said, to the council room, shortly before – while Lelouch was deep in thought about Black Knights – "it might be nice to send Princess Euphemia something? A gift for saving me that time? I really want to try."

"The royal mail is monitored," Suzaku had said at once. "Almost nothing can get by. One time there was poisonous powder, and so…." He'd failed to notice Nina shrinking back from his voice, from the clearly Eleven presence of him, down to the way he sat knelt on the floor. "My coworker Cecile-san says not even love letters get through. It's horrible, that even those can't be delivered if you try." He'd frowned, and Lelouch had watched his hair fall in his eyes.

"Is that true?" Nina's shy, dejected flush had overcome her fear of Elevens, and had sparked a conversation about how to admit an attraction to someone if odds stacked against you. A furtive conversation – that no one was meant to hear, except Suzaku. But Suzaku lacked subtlety. And so the whole bored council listened to his loud replies.

Rivalz had burst out, "Nina – it's nice. It's nice to hear you talking about someone. Even if it is a royal princess. You like girls _only_, don't you? Girls are great! I want to take you out some time, and talk about—"

"Rivalz!" both Shirley and Kallen had yelled, while Milly just laughed, and Suzaku had said to Nina, very deeply shocked, "You're gay?"

That had been that. A plan had been made. A day for Pride, in which they'd all engage. The council had hooked up with the school's Gay-Straight Alliance. They'd balanced the budget and stacked the supplies.

That was why Lelouch was standing next to a bush, draping a flag on it right now. Standing near Suzaku, who was far too gleeful-eager, and not helping Lelouch because he spoke in depth to Nina.

"That's wonderful," Suzaku was saying to the girl. He didn't glance up at Lelouch when Lelouch loudly sighed. "I didn't know that about you at all! Liking her highness means you have good taste. Euphie— I mean, Princess Euphemia… She's pretty, and gentle, and has an open mind…."

"Y-yes," said Nina, trying her best to leave Suzaku's side. She trailed a batch of streamers in her hands, and had clearly exhausted her Eleven-quota – her tolerance amount – for the next month, maybe year.

"Suzaku," Lelouch called, flatly, to help the girl escape her bind. Suzaku at last glanced over, came, and Nina wandered off, heaving a sigh.

Lelouch put his hands on his hips. "How can you say those things about Euphie, with garish props like those in your arms?" He pointed at Suzaku's rainbow pinwheels.

"What do you mean?" asked Suzaku, his eyes wide. "Holding rainbow things doesn't mean I don't like women. I can't say that Euphie is pretty? She is."

Lelouch grit his teeth and snatched the nearest pinwheel. "Obviously handling them doesn't make you gay. If that were the case, I'd be gayer than you." He didn't look down at his flag, or his spray paint. "But I would like to point out you look anything but straight today."

"How so?"

"Your enthusiasm level." Lelouch very stiffly rearranged his rainbow flag.

"But Le_louch!" _Suzaku cried, and it made Lelouch jump. The next thing he knew, Suzaku's pinwheels hit the grass. Suzaku started to help him drape the flag across the bush. "Celebrating diversity is good! It's important to learn to accept everyone."

"It's a shame the people you work for don't believe that too."

"You're not homophobic, Lelouch, are you?" Suzaku hadn't heard his muttered chide.

"I'm just saying, Suzaku, that they'll all make fun of you. You're already Japanese, remember? The council can't protect you from bullying forever, especially if you refuse to help yourself so they'll back off. It's better to maintain a neutral impression, and put ideas like these rainbows aside."

"So I should just hide it? My enthusiasm? I shouldn't try to educate the people who are ignorant – about same-gender relationships, or even Japan or Britannia? That's like saying it's okay to stand by and do nothing while people are mistreated in front of me."

Kallen took that moment to wander by.

"You _should_ just stand by," Lelouch said, monitoring Kallen from the corner of his eye. "It's not your place to stand up for people who wouldn't stand back up for you. It's not worth the risk. You'll get yourself killed. Better to save your own life than theirs, by staying out of danger. Besides, if the system's gone wrong, there's nothing people like us can or should do."

Kallen, when she thought he didn't see, made a terrible face that broke her school character, mumbling something about his awful personality, his lack of potential, and his stupid waste of brains. Lelouch tried not to grin; he really did like Kallen. After _this_, her last suspicions about him being tied to Zero ought to be erased.

"That's horrid, Lelouch," Suzaku said, and when Lelouch looked up, Suzaku was hugging a section of flag to his chest. Lelouch actually _felt _horrid, getting plastered with an expression so sour from his friend.

"I… didn't mean to upset you, Suzaku."

"Except you did. You don't deserve to hang this flag."

Lelouch went inside to take a call from Ohgi. He told C.C. about Suzaku's reaction afterward.

She laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

"I'll Geass every pizza delivery man," Lelouch threatened, unable to take any further derision. "One by one. Until no one will bring you pizza, and then you'll learn it's not worth your own misery to laugh at my troubles."

"These are your troubles?" C.C. tinkled, rolling about in her unzipped straight-jacket, looking insane and amused on his bed. She presented every kind of wrong implication in image that Lelouch could possibly imagine.

He rechecked his door, to be sure it was shut, and that neither Sayoko nor Nunnally would see her if they passed. To make sure _Suzaku_ wouldn't see, if Suzaku had seen him sneaking away from rainbow duties and chosen to follow.

C.C. said, "Even if he isn't as gay as he looked, _you_, Lelouch, are a better candidate for homoerotic suggestion."

"And your grounds for that statement?" Lelouch asked, sitting in his computer chair, and pulling up new information from Ohgi. Tamaki was draining their funds on booze and women. Tamaki wanted to invite Zero tomorrow night to a brothel. Lelouch wrote back, and told Ohgi to have somebody follow him and write down all his spending.

"The one who belongs wearing rainbows is you."

"I'd like to see your proof of that, C.C."

"It's still outside right now, spreading pride." She pointed. Lelouch looked out the window – at Suzaku.

Suzaku. Dripping chalk and streamers. Shirley stood beside him, yanking a rainbow hat down on his ears.

Lelouch slammed his laptop shut. Why did this, of all things, have to put life in perspective? Did C.C. know that he and Suzaku had grown awkward, since the locker incident? Or maybe only Lelouch felt awkward, every time he neared Suzaku now.

A little voice whispered, cruelly, in his head, that the locker room encounter had only fueled his need to focus on Suzaku – in ways that smacked of all but innocence. Lelouch found himself wondering about Suzaku's health now, far more than what was necessary. His eyes would get caught on small snatches of skin, looking for scars… or simply noting his skin tone. Suzaku's wrist, or the back of his neck, or his ear often ended up the pinpoint of Lelouch's gaze.

Suzaku hadn't helped, either. At lunch, when their hands brushed, while they were aiming for the salt, Suzaku would snatch his hand back and then quickly glance away. A few times Lelouch swore he saw hints of flush.

It didn't last, though. It never, ever lasted. Suzaku, it seemed, always recovered much faster than he did. There was no way to tell – without asking directly – what Suzaku was feeling. So Lelouch didn't ask.

It didn't matter, in the end. They wouldn't end up nose-to-nose, with bare skin, anywhere, again. It would blow over.

And that was for the better. Lelouch had almost lost his mind, trying to analyze whether or not the attraction he'd suspected was there truly existed. It was for the better, to brush it all aside. Cornelia was here now. Zero needed to crush her, use her for answers, gain power over her and move fast toward his answers. He didn't have room for distractions of this kind.

He thought of Narita, the place they'd head tomorrow. He'd told the Black Knights – and Nunnally – that he was going hiking. Mountainsides were preferable, weren't they, compared to rainbow campuses. They were.

Yes.

"Do you really have time for this drama, Lelouch?" C.C. stilled lolled atop his bed, but now she sat up, looking grim. Her voice dipped down into its lower register.

"It's only drama if something goes wrong." Lelouch got up and opened his wardrobe. He checked his bag, the one that hid his Zero mask. "As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with Suzaku. He's completely normal, if a little overeager, and I have no choice but to be willing to allow it. He does what he does. What have you heard from Kyoto?"

"What if he does something abnormal, now? Will it affect your decision to go on with this?"

Lelouch paused, with his fingers on his mask, in the midst of polishing its bluish surface. The clothes in his wardrobe hung above him, dark and stifling.

"We made a contract, C.C.," Lelouch said. "There isn't anything Suzaku can do to void that, despite that he's my closest friend." Lelouch allowed himself a solemn moment of honesty. "Despite, even if somehow, he became a little more."

He wanted to deny the implications, but he couldn't. Lelouch looked at his reflection, in the glint of Zero's mask. It was better to face all possibilities. All. No matter what they made him feel. His personal life often battled with Zero's, and he didn't want, in any way, to pay the price for being unprepared.

"What if he proposes having sex, and you agree?"

Lelouch yelped, and stuffed away his mask, and slammed the bag shut and told C.C. her words were out of line. She was utterly mad, and she could leave and not come back until Narita, and then she could stay three feet off from Zero at all times. C.C. climbed off his bed, and pointed out that she might fry an egg upon his face, it looked so hot. She started to laugh again, prodding his cheek. Lelouch took deep breaths and tried not to plot her demise.

A set of wheels hummed outside of his door. "Big brother?" they both heard a voice.

C.C. raised a finger to her chin, feigning thoughtfulness. "Will your sister support your perverted feelings for him, or do you think—"

"What is it, Nunnally?" In one smooth shove, he stuffed C.C. inside the wardrobe. The thud sound was masked by the click of the door, as his young sister opened it up and rolled in.

Lelouch hid the latch noise of the wardrobe's lock behind a throat-clear, and added, "How pretty. Is that a new dress?"

Nunnally giggled. "It's like you to notice," she exclaimed, as C.C. announced, "_I'm _not the one who picked the closet, boy."

Nunnally didn't appear to hear. Lelouch saw her head tilt; she was listening to the tones of conversation that drifted from downstairs. After a moment, Nunnally grinned and said, "Suzaku seems to be giving our Sayoko a night off."

"He's ordering around our maid?" Lelouch swore he could hear C.C. guffaw, but all he did was breathe and ball his hands.

"Yes. I told him you were here. He came looking for you. He said you argued, and that he wanted to apologize."

Lelouch unclenched his hands, a bit surprised. "There's no need. We didn't argue. He just had a different opinion than me, about Milly's Pride competition today."

"Isn't pride a wonderful thing to be supporting? I know I can't see the colors of rainbows, the way they form a harmony, but I can still imagine it. Oh, and Nina gave me this." Nunnally raised her wrist. A rainbow bracelet. "Were you and Suzaku bickering about who could hang the most flags?"

Lelouch changed the subject. "Are you hungry, Nunnally?"

Nunnally smiled. "Yes. Suzaku wants us to have dinner together. He said you suggested the three of us do it, now that he's here, and said that he could stay tonight."

"He didn't specifically check with me," Lelouch murmured, frowning.

"But big brother sounds happy."

Lelouch sighed. Nunnally told him they'd eat in an hour, after the competition winner was announced. Lelouch announced that he had homework to finish. Nunnally left, and he used the homework time to make plans with C.C. – about how to turn Narita into a landslide.

Lelouch also made sure to call Q-1. His ace pilot sounded irritated, and when he asked why, Kallen's response to Zero was, "My school is too carefree. But I… I'd like to preserve that mindset for them. I want that kind of gentle world. Okay, Zero. I'll start the Guren Type II's manual. Tomorrow, I'll be more than ready to fight."

The sewing club won the Pride competition. Dinner time came on too fast.

"Suzaku is still _here?_" Lelouch cried, when Nunnally came back upstairs, and told Lelouch that she and Suzaku had cleaned together, and now were getting ready. "Let's go down then. Doubtless Suzaku can't handle all the kitchen chores alone. Especially if he dismissed Sayoko."

"Oh, I don't know," Nunnally said, tittering. Lelouch saw she looked radiant. The new dress she'd put on… was it because of Suzaku? "He said he's very good at the preparation part…."

They went down. Lelouch heard the _thunk, thunk, thunk _of the knife, long before he saw Suzaku bent over a cucumber. In an apron. Slicing away swiftly.

"You don't exactly look the part," Lelouch announced, stepping coolly through the door. He rolled up his sleeves. "You know, Sayoko wears a dress."

"Very funny," Suzaku replied, tossing his hair and keeping at the vegetable. "You know, the Pride game's over now."

Lelouch found another apron and donned it. Nunnally said – when Lelouch asked her if she'd be fine alone – "I'll wait at the table and fold paper cranes." She tried to hide a giggle. "Don't cook anything _too _strange together now, all right?"

"I'm just making salad," Suzaku called, glancing for the first time out across his shoulder. His tousled hair fell in his eyes, and a faint gloss of perspiration dotted his temple. Such concentration. And so very earnest.

Lelouch neared, his apron on, and analyzed the cutting board. Anything was better than staring at Suzaku's eyes. An odd thing struck him.

"Suzaku," he said immediately. "You've cut up three whole cucumbers." He tried hard not to let his volume rise.

"They were in the fridge," Suzaku replied, already defensive, ceasing his work mid-slice. "Sayoko said, when I offered to take over, I could start with the salad. She said the vegetables were all inside."

"That doesn't mean, 'Use all the vegetables.'"

A full head of lettuce, too, had been shredded. A bowl of carrot slices like a mountain grew beside it. Celery, in a tall pile. And radishes.

"You aren't hungry?" Suzaku asked.

"That isn't the point. Not even a horse could eat all that."

Lelouch stepped up and took the knife, which Suzaku yielded carefully. When their fingers brushed, Suzaku's hand was warm. Lelouch ignored the zing the contact caused.

"Why don't you get the meat out for the roast? It goes in that pan there." He would simply redirect Suzaku's efforts in the kitchen. A decent meal for Nunnally would be made up in no time.

Suzaku didn't move. "That apron, Lelouch," he said, a bit too casually.

Lelouch did not so much as shift his head, as he parted the cucumber slices by half. "You're wearing mine," he answered. "This one is Nunnally's."

"Oh? Too bad. It looks so cute on you."

Lelouch slowed down, trying to count the radishes. "I thought you just said the Pride game was over."

Suzaku leaned a hand on the counter beside him. He stayed well away, and didn't invade Lelouch's space, but an unmistakable lounge of a slightly cocksure brand had tilted his hips. He was looking around for the roasting pan Lelouch had indicated, already distracted.

There wasn't a suggestion in it, Lelouch told himself. None at all. Suzaku was being innocent, it seemed, or perhaps just getting him back for the dress comment a moment ago. Perhaps Suzaku meant to mindlessly banter. No doubt he'd learned to tease in that detached-yet-questionable style from Milly. Or… perhaps the style came from Nunnally, even. The remark had been as pure and clean in character as that. This was Suzaku, after all. Suzaku had never been one to engage in innuendo.

Except Lelouch deigned to glance up, at the last instant, just to make sure – because his confidence was rattled. And what he saw made him uncertain again. Unsure enough to frown, and feel his heart beat start to race.

Suzaku had lifted his free hand and tucked it into the back of his hair, pink-faced. "Where did you say the pan was? I still don't know my way around your kitchen."

Lelouch's mind wiped itself clear. This quickening between them, this strange resonance. Again now, manifesting itself? Suzaku, knocked off-guard by it as well. Or perhaps the temperature in the kitchen had climbed too high; Suzaku was only warm.

Lelouch speared a cucumber slice, and dropped it in the waiting salad bowl. He couldn't start to overanalyze again. He couldn't. There was one way he could check the theories he'd formed, to ensure he didn't waste his own time getting riled up or lost in questions, but it wasn't without certain risk. Should he attempt the risk?

He'd do it.

It meant he could avoid the route of asking directly, as well. Besides, flirting, Shirley often announced, was the best way to learn if people were compatible. If the strongest attempts were brushed off or ignored—

"Suzaku," Lelouch said, and Suzaku turned around. Lelouch forsook the vegetables and hooked his finger in the pocket of Suzaku's apron. The pocket at the waist, above the hipbone. Lelouch tugged.

Suzaku allowed himself to be drawn forward, very close – by the jut of that hip, which he looked down at, flustered thoroughly. "Lelouch?"

"You see," said Lelouch, drawing nearer still, making himself appear suave in body language, or appetizing – or perhaps slightly wanton – "I happened to be thinking, aprons really make—" His feet lost purchase on the floor.

It all happened again. They went down – because Lelouch had tried to take a step, to close the gap between them completely. Lelouch's shoe slipped fast in something wet… and now his back was flat in it. He felt it leak in through his dress shirt, cold, and far more shocking than the fall itself had been.

He shouldn't have put on a dress shirt at all, Lelouch thought, just because he'd seen his sister in a dress.

Suzaku – hauled down as well when Lelouch's grip on the apron had transformed into a death-hold – looked shocked from where he'd caught himself. Above Lelouch, suspended on his hands and knees. He lifted a hand up. It glistened. Wet too.

"What spilled on the floor?" Lelouch asked calmly.

"Water. From the lettuce wash."

"You neglected to dry it? Because why?"

"Because I heard you come downstairs." Suzaku's response was easy, prompt. "And the cucumbers weren't ready yet."

Lelouch tried to climb up, his elbows throbbing. He refused to look at Suzaku.

"There was no need to impress me," he said. He stilled again when Suzaku didn't move. He dared himself to look into green eyes.

Suzaku's stare was deeply thoughtful. "Can I ask—"

"While you're on top of me?"

"Huh?" Suzaku murmured. "Well, actually. Yes."

Lelouch felt a vein pulsing fast in his neck. "Ask, Suzaku." He shut his eyes.

Suzaku waited until he opened them again. Lelouch saw Suzaku had backed off a bit. But he was still there, hovering, looking pensive, and Lelouch had no choice but to wait for him to speak.

Earnestly, without a flush, and meeting his gaze in what was wholesome bafflement, Suzaku responded. "Why," he began, while Lelouch grew slowly warm at those great emerald eyes, "do we—"

Nunnally's wheelchair rolled in. She cocked her head. "What happened to the two of you? Your voices are coming from the floor…."

Lelouch dropped back his head, stifling a sigh.

"We fell over," Suzaku replied. He stood at once and gave Lelouch his hand.

"Your brother, Nunnally," Lelouch said, forcing a smile into his voice, "is not as charming as he might like to pretend." This time, he let go of Suzaku's hand at once, after he felt steady on his feet. "Not when he has clumsy jocks to contend with, at least."

He couldn't help himself from assigning blame. If Suzaku hadn't been so frustratingly hard to read….

Suzaku said, seriously, "It was you who pulled me down."

Lelouch twitched. He had really just tried to _flirt_ with one Suzaku Kururugi, hadn't he. So he deserved every ounce of embarrassment.

Nunnally clasped her hands and grinned. When Suzaku asked her when Sayoko was coming back, Nunnally said she'd help them clean and hide the evidence of their disaster. Suzaku said, "First let's finish the work. Let's make the salad," and he hummed a little tune. He dumped every cucumber slice to be found into the bowl despite Lelouch's warnings.

Lelouch tried to act calm, when Nunnally came up to squeeze his hand. "He's allowed to choose ingredients he likes, big brother, isn't he? Or is that not it? Did you get hurt when you fell?"

"I'm all right," he muttered. "It was just a shock. Why don't you help Suzaku pick the dressing?"

"Even if it was a shock, it's nice to have Suzaku pull you up."

Lelouch didn't answer. He let Nunnally roll off and help Suzaku stuff the lettuce in the bowl.

C.C. leaned her head around the door, and spoke when she was certain no one but Lelouch could hear. "I no longer believe, Lelouch, that a space as tiny as a closet can contain you."

And then she laughed, and told him he might want to consider a fortress, and paint it up with rainbows.


	3. Guys' Night

**Author**** Note:** _Guys, BIG SPOILERS in this chapter for the series up through episode 16. For my friends watching the show at present for the first time, DO NOT READ. Unless you're caught up to this section. (Promise, it's worth it to maintain secrecy and surprise.)_

_For everyone else, yes, another chapter. Bet you can guess what's coming, too. (Drama.) All hail Britannia?_

* * *

_Nothing lasts forever_, Milly always said to them, _so try to enjoy this school life while you can_. Her phrasing was all that Lelouch could hear now, echoing over, as he kissed Shirley in the rain.

His first thought had been, _But this kiss is my first._ Afterward, he'd recognized, _I've made a big mistake. A bad mistake. I've killed Shirley's _father.

He didn't have time to feel bad about their date. About how he'd been late, and hadn't brought her any present. Shirley deserved a present, for the way he brushed her off, and she deserved the date because she was Lelouch's friend. Lelouch liked her. He liked her, a lot, and it didn't matter that he'd been with Suzaku beforehand, exchanging the brief hello that had _made_ him late to Shirley's date. Narita hadn't delayed him. It hadn't mattered – none of that – when he found Shirley in the rain. That Lelouch's walk had not burned thoughts of Suzaku out of his mind became irrelevant; the disaster right in front of him called for sharper focus. Lelouch didn't have time to feel his guilt, see Shirley's smiling face and banish it, and make it up to her, because Shirley hadn't even smiled. Shirley's tear-stained kiss beneath the equally sad sky made Lelouch think only that Zero had for the first time failed. Life with his school friends would never be the same again.

So he kissed her. He held Shirley as tightly as he could. He didn't ask Shirley to stop, when she pressed closer, with lips feminine-tender and warm.

"Lelou, I-I—"

"Shirley, I'm…." And he could not apologize.

Not until the funeral.

The funeral was worse. Even Kallen's staunch demeanor did nothing to save him from all the uncertainty he had built up. The way Kallen showed deep respect for the dead, and yet stuck quietly to all her Black Knight guns – Lelouch could tell it from the stiffness in her shoulders – was honest, and inspiring, and brave, really – for what was one man's life compared to Zero's? Even if that man were a precious friend's father? But that friend was _Shirley_. Lelouch couldn't bear it. Shirley, loud and clumsy and kind. Comforting her mother as the dirt filled up the grave. Even Lelouch's Geass couldn't undo such a horror, and Lelouch would never use it to undo this, if he could. The path of carnage he'd chosen to walk would be worth all the blood, in the end – it was _right. _But that didn't mean he could not feel it hurt.

He didn't need Suzaku to stand there, tearing Zero's methods apart_._

But Lelouch picked himself right back up, even if it took a little bit of C.C.'s cruelty. At least Lelouch had known enough not to expect it would be easy.

Thus, when Shirley very nearly shot him with Zero's own gun, he couldn't find room in his heart to be surprised. Sadness – only sadness bubbled up in him at that. It left a roiling conviction. He'd done too much wrong to save Shirley Fennette from the mire of blood and lies. He would erase it for her, the least thing he could do. He hugged her. He ignored her pleas and cries.

Just like that, someone he'd maybe loved or could have loved completely disappeared. The hole inside Lelouch's heart had no time to be filled. No, it would empty – as Zero ploughed on. Or perhaps his heart would sink, heavy and unwieldy, to somewhere he'd never find again. Sink, with all of the weight of the sins he now would bear, for the sake of his friends. Perhaps for the world. The last thing Lelouch wanted to think about was love, or feelings similar that might be lost among the sin. Feeling was for people whose hearts were soft, and tender, and _his_ now was nothing but a chilly stone.

"Do we need to have Guys' Night?" Milly inquired, throwing an arm around Lelouch on the porch. He'd told her about his fight with Shirley. He'd only told because Shirley had walked up and said hi. Now that she was gone again, Lelouch wished to forget – but that had been Shirley'd Geass, not his own.

"You're a girl," Lelouch reminded Milly, while the president of Ashford laughed a laugh from in her chest. "It will take a long time for Shirley to feel better, but that doesn't mean _I _need any—"

"You do."

Milly released him, casting off all humor. She gave him a look that made him feel stripped bare.

"A fight between two people who are such close friends is awful. Keeping a thing like that inside is never, ever healthy. We'll have Guys' Night," Milly insisted.

"A Guys' Night with who?"

"Me, you, Rivalz, and Suzaku. And Arthur. In a few days, maybe, when Suzaku comes back to school. I'll even supply the buffalo wings. We'll deal with woes the manly way, Lelouch! What do you say, do you think you might come?" She knew better than to tell him this time he was forced to go.

"I'll think about it," was all Lelouch said. He barely managed the lump inside his throat.

Suzaku, she'd said. To see Suzaku again, after days away, spent working as Zero…. Zero had done very game-changing things since last they'd met, and had made fools of the Britannians. Lelouch didn't know if he could bear Suzaku's disdain if Suzaku talked about it – even if the disdain wasn't directed quite at him. Something in Milly's mention of Suzaku made Lelouch ache. He wanted to break down, like a child who might cry.

Suzaku was his _friend_. His closest companion. Even if Lelouch could never tell Suzaku the truth…. Well, wouldn't it be like a breath of fresh air, something desperately needed, to see his friend again?

Suzaku, kind and gentle, now that he'd grown up. Suzaku… who'd die before seeing Lelouch hurt. The reasons for why didn't matter so much. So what if it was punishment, in the back of his mind? Lelouch would guard and guide Suzaku; Suzaku wouldn't die for Genbu Kururugi's death, and wouldn't take any more bullets for people in dark underground tunnels, all righteous and reckless. They were, perhaps, somewhat like each other's caretakers. If Lelouch wanted, for once, to let Suzaku wipe his stress away, with nothing but his presence and his voice….

Would Lelouch let him?

That very night, Lelouch's life went more wrong still. That night, C.C. left him for Mao, who had come back for his prize after destroying Shirley's mind. Lelouch stood alone on the staircase with his cell phone. C.C. shut the door behind her, leaving with her sarcasm apparent in her eyes. Just when he'd finally learned her real name.

Lelouch said aloud, to darkness, "Is it drama now?"

She'd accused him of it, drama, not so very long before. Lelouch had said, _It's only drama if something goes wrong. _

His focused frustration and the urge to save his witch was perhaps the magic miracle that made his plan go right. He felt invincible, in his borrowed police suit. He wasn't at all, and he wondered when it'd catch up to him.

Suzaku came back to school the next day. Lelouch was so tired, he barely could greet him. He didn't think how glad he was to see Suzaku's face – the way he'd wanted to, and drown in it, when Milly had brought up Guys' Night. They simply talked, about dinner plans. Rivalz skidded up and exploded about Milly's latest marriage interview.

Suzaku stayed a bright spark in his day, but he wasn't bright enough to warm Lelouch when Lelouch found out Mao wasn't dead.

Suzaku. Oh, Suzaku.

Suzaku helped save his sister. Lelouch couldn't have done it without him, and that prompted mixed feelings. Lelouch's gratitude, his sense of trust in his friend overwhelmed him, but his dependency on Suzaku was near maddening now. How would he have saved Nunnally if Suzaku hadn't been there? Was it fate that Suzaku _had_ been? How could a situation so diabolical and so wretched turn so perfect in an instant, thanks to one Kururugi, and then force Lelouch to realize – like some sharp epiphany – that Suzaku was what kept Lelouch's world beautiful? Reckless, and brilliant, and talented Suzaku. He could dodge bullets and run right up walls.

He wanted that skill for his Black Knights. Himself. But none of their rescue was tied in to Zero, so Lelouch only stood there and drank in Suzaku's strength. That unadulterated resolve, driven by a goal that didn't involve Britannia for once.

The wreckage of the stained glass window sang beneath Suzaku's footwork, but the spell Suzaku cast on Lelouch fell apart, just like the glass. Lelouch saw too much of Suzaku's peeled-back mind. And he grew very angry at the truths Mao exposed.

Perhaps it was the best decision, in the end, to silence one like Mao forever. No one ought to expose the mind of any human being that way. Everyone was flawed. Lelouch was flawed, but Suzaku especially….

Suzaku wanted to die.

If Lelouch had thought he'd find a way to bear the sins of others, he didn't know how to bear that one at all. He didn't know what he should say to Suzaku. He felt so weary, suddenly, that he wanted to sit down where Suzaku knelt. Lean over Suzaku, and murmur, "Just cry." After all, Milly said that crying made it feel better. But this was something different. This was drama, wasn't it.

Lelouch told Suzaku to forget about Mao, that Mao's words were false, irrelevant. He left Suzaku kneeling there and fled to Nunnally's side. Suzaku came too, eventually, with a stance and an expression cool and easy and refocused. Lelouch started to find Suzaku could swiftly compartmentalize. It was a skill Lelouch wasn't certain he was capable of himself.

Not to a degree like that. It unnerved him. Suzaku glanced up and smiled. Then Suzaku hugged Nunnally as well, and Lelouch's nerves returned in cautious increments.

It was Guys' Night.

The council room lights had not all been switched on. They ate around one table, uncomfortably at first, as if they occupied a starkly lit interrogation room. The buffalo wings, though, tasted better than Lelouch would have given Milly credit for. Rivalz thought so too, and announced it aloud; it sparked a conversation about stereotypical cuisine for guys.

Milly said that boy food and girl food didn't exist. Rules like that were unfair gender assumptions that society forced on people, ingraining it in them from childhood, because humans liked to label and categorize. It was a lie, designed to simplify one's daily trudge through life – but instead of simplify, sometimes it just felt like an insult. It was misrepresentation of alternate and yet normal – if not _common_ – cases. After all, Lelouch could cook beautiful casseroles, and Cornish hens, and fruit salads worth dying for, but that didn't mean his existence was wrong. Divergence cast a stigma on irregulars. That harmed. Lelouch shouldn't be penalized, should he?

"And what _is_ Guys' Night," Milly urged, "but an excuse to get together and throw society's roles aside?"

"You didn't have to use my life to make your point," Lelouch exclaimed.

"Of course I didn't. But you _are_ a rare case, Lelou." Milly winked, ready at once to give him more of a hard time.

Lelouch wondered if she meant to draw a parallel, despite her light-toned words. Her ideas about stereotypes applied to more than the student council staff, or to Ashford's carefree students. Suzaku was Japanese. The Numbers were hated by Britannia… but not here, at least. Not here any more. The student council threw out judgment, thanks to Milly allowing Suzaku to nest under her wing.

Lelouch wondered if Milly supported Zero's rebellion.

The tall and busty blonde went on. Here, tonight, they would talk about their feelings – the way guys were taught they shouldn't have to in order to solve problems or evaluate emotions. Granted, their time was spent alone with other guys – they all felt safest cordoned off from the girls, who were more used to sharing – but it was a start. Later, once the skill was learned, they'd have a co-ed night of spilling truth and secrets. Then they, the men, would feel just as free and open, and all the student council could interact with less drama. And more understanding.

Rivalz reiterated that Milly was a girl, but Suzaku said, "Ms. President, I think your plan is brilliant."

The sentiment made Lelouch look at him.

He hadn't once looked on Suzaku yet, that night. As if Suzaku had been waiting for it, their gazes met, and Suzaku softly smiled. Like the whole room wasn't watching their exchange, Suzaku said, "You and Shirley can work out your argument."

Lelouch flushed. How had Suzaku known his thoughts? Was Guys' Night specifically so Shirley wouldn't be there? Lelouch tried not to ball the hand he'd laid flat on the table. Was Lelouch meant to talk about her? Let it out? Everyone knew he hadn't been himself. Yet no one thought to question Shirley, the person more awkward thanks to gaps now in her memories.

But Lelouch had planned it that way, hadn't he. He'd counted on his friends to all react as they were doing. So he braced himself beneath Suzaku's kind gaze, and said, more to the room than to Suzaku, "Shirley and I will be fine. When you care about somebody, you forgive them and move on. You allow each other the time you need to recover, and then you have to press on."

"Even if it drives you crazy?" Rivalz asked him. "Even if they retaliate, and it gets worse than the first offense that happened between you? She's pretending not to know you! That must hurt pretty badly." Milly was nodding knowingly, at Rivalz's raised voice and his heartfelt words of sympathy.

"If you care, you'll forgive and move on."

_Someday, Shirley,_ Lelouch thought, heart pounding. _Someday again we can laugh, if you want it. If I can't undo my heinous actions, I'll make friends with you this time, over again._

Suzaku watched him openly, without appearing embarrassed.

"Well then," said Milly, uncapping a bottle, "Let's celebrate the power that comes from loving friends and the others we love, even when they do things wrong. It's better to stay calm than to erupt and act rashly."

Suzaku twitched, and Lelouch didn't miss it. Was Suzaku still thinking of his dead father?

"Let's celebrate how strong we are as honest, loving men! Even though men and woman are equal here at Ashford, we men still have our pride! And when that pride is bruised by things like arguments, then we drink until we fix it, and don't need to watch our manners. Right?"

Rivalz uttered, with his head on the edge of the council room table, "Prez, you're a _girl_. And I like you that way..."

Suzaku sat stiff with his hands on his thighs. Swiftly, however, he came to himself. "Boys or girls, and Guys' Night aside," he announced, deeply concerned, "it's against school policy to drink on campus grounds, Ms. President."

"That's why," said Milly, throwing an arm around the anxious boy, "I'm using my authority as president to overthrow it. What do you say? Oho, shaking your head? Should I use a spell, then? Hey, RELAX~!" She stuffed a bottle in Suzaku's hand. Suzaku looked flustered. Rivalz guffawed.

Lelouch reached out calmly for a bottle of his own. He didn't look at Suzaku. "If none of us are careless, there's no problem. We're all adults."

"And adults," Rivalz announced, "abuse their privilege all the time!"

Rivalz gulped down half a beer, while Lelouch tipped his head back and took a draft he didn't taste.

"I guess." Suzaku frowned down at his, and put his mouth around it like a child tasting broccoli or asparagus for the first time.

Milly told stories about past Guys' Nights at Ashford. Holding it was a tradition, she said, ever since the school had formed. They'd eat a lot, and drink a lot, and exchange stories from deep inside their hearts. Lelouch stopped listening, in favor of gazing out the window at the nighttime sky. He wondered how many pizzas C.C. was ordering in his absence. Her Cheese-kun toy already occupied too much space…. Suppose she acquired the whole mascot family?

"Was there something _you_ wanted to share?" asked Suzaku of Milly, and Lelouch could not help noting that for once, Suzaku tried for delicacy. Milly cocked her head to one side. "I heard about your marriage interview," Suzaku admitted. "With Earl Lloyd."

Milly turned away from them. Her arms folded. She unveiled a smile Lelouch thought was wry. "Well," she said, "I can't just cry about it, can I? It's okay; there's no need to worry so much. I won't make a fuss. This is my lot, as heir. My frivolous reign as president can't last forever."

Rivalz squeezed his beer bottle and looked grimly aside. "You're being hypocritical, prez," he muttered hoarsely.

Milly appeared not to hear him. "That's why I want to have fun with you all now. Let's feel closer! Let's play a game. I want to stay up, with my boys here, all night."

Lelouch thought, _No. You don't want to go to sleep_. She didn't want to have nightmares about marriage interviews, or lay awake attempting to console herself with thoughts that tried too hard to justify it, like, _At least I'll get to design my wedding cake_.

Suzaku said, gently, "No, Ms. President. We should call the others then, too. Nina, and Shirley, and Kallen – if she's healthy. All of them, to be here with you."

Milly's smile grew more sad, but she looked up at the stars she knew weren't out and raised her voice. "As the one who looks out for everybody, and not just myself..." She pointed at Suzaku dramatically. "I can't let you get away with that talk! This party is really for you. You and Lelouch."

Lelouch, this time, was the one who gave a jump, and Suzaku said, strictly, "You're just changing the subject."

"President," Lelouch said, hopping on Suzaku's train, "that kind of meddling in affairs won't gain you points with students."

"Oh, so you and Suzaku don't have something deep to discuss with each other?" Milly's gaze looked like that of a panther on the prowl. "I didn't have to make you both a reason to address it? Nothing private, that involves feelings, and needs to be accounted for before it's too late to contain it? An issue of attraction, Lelouch?"

Lelouch's mind completely blanked. Suzaku froze, and softly cleared his throat. Lelouch, stupidly, allowed his gaze to slip sideways, to find tousled hair and assess its still owner.

Suzaku's expression. It couldn't. That meant—

Rivalz said, "Ohhh, right – the Nunnally issue. You must be kind of mad, Lelouch, that your best friend has been starting to put moves on your sister." He scratched the back of his neck when Suzaku uttered a cry. "Aha ha ha," Rivalz hunched his head. "Sorry, Suzaku. I bet it's rough for you as well, but there are lines, man. I mean, walking her around through the flowers in her wheelchair? All alone without Lelouch?" Suzaku spluttered. "You two should work it out."

Lelouch, very slowly, brought himself back to life. "Suzaku," he said. For a moment, all was silent. He uttered, "Do you have designs on my sister?"

Suzaku waved both hands. "N-no, Lelouch! It's not like that!"

Lelouch forgot everything but Nunnally's innocent smiles and laughter. He thought, too, of her dress. That special dress she'd worn. Suzaku got up from his chair, rounding the table. Rivalz just frowned, and Milly raised her eyebrows.

Arthur meowed and blocked Suzaku's path.

"Lelouch, no. You know that I— Nunnally's— uwaaaagh!" A hiss and a tripping sound. "Ow, Arthur… aah!"

Lelouch very slowly rose too, unconcerned. Suzaku's plight with the cat didn't matter. "President," he said, "you're right. We need to work this out."

"You're going to forgive him, of course?" asked Milly. And she winked.

The wink did not throw off his cool. Lelouch replied, "I want to talk to him. Alone."

"I won't stop you," Milly sing-songed, and Rivalz looked elated, at the thought of him and Milly left alone. "Go hash it out, but when you come baaack…."

"I know," Lelouch exclaimed, snagging Suzaku by the collar. He hauled Suzaku away while Suzaku detached Arthur from his calf. "When we come back, we'll be made to share our feelings."

"Lelouch, I really didn't— I-It's _Nunnally_. She— waaugh!"

Lelouch dragged Suzaku down the hall.

They entered on one of the far, empty classrooms. Too far away for Milly to hear them. Lelouch left the door propped open a crack, enough that he could see the reflection of the hallway in the knob. If anyone came, he'd spot movement in advance. He would stop what he knew now that he had to do.

_And what exactly is that? _his cruel mind cut in and asked. Lelouch ignored it. He kept himself on _Go_.

It was just…. Lelouch could think of no time better than right now, to test Suzaku. That and that alone had been the motive for this talk.

"We shouldn't sneak around the building when it's mostly closed," Suzaku was saying, glancing into corners like he prepared to fight ghosts. It hit Lelouch that Suzaku had a dire disability.

Suzaku couldn't comprehend what it meant to relax. Ever.

Lelouch refrained from rolling his eyes. Perhaps Lelouch should have insisted that they brought their beers along. Alcohol, he realized. Something with more power of persuasion than the Geass. Also, less debilitating. And more useful than other intoxicants like Kallen's mother's sweet Refrain.

Lelouch should have used alcohol on people, at least to start, before relying on the Geass.

But alcohol wore off, Lelouch knew. And he shouldn't allow his mind to wander. Not with Suzaku, here like this. This was his chance, and he needed to use it.

Suzaku was tracing the shape of a desk. Lelouch had to get him to state his intentions.

"Milly's right," Lelouch announced. "We have something we should discuss."

The direct route, at last. The only path he hadn't tried.

Suzaku said, "I would never, _ever _attempt to deflower Nunnally."

A silence passed. The desk Suzaku leaned over creaked. Lelouch's control felt erratic, like the hands on a wrongly-ticking clock that timed in spurts instead of seconds.

"I never thought you would do so, Suzaku. But use of the word 'deflower' shows you've put too much thought toward it."

"Aha ha." Suzaku backed up a step. "D-don't make that face. You _know _I—"

"I do, yes."

Suzaku looked taken aback, and then relieved. "Then… this is actually about Nunnally's kidnapping?" he said. "You still want to keep it a secret from the others." Lelouch gave no reply. Suzaku clawed deeper for a thread, and found one that further unraveled the rich tapestry of his face rather than mend it up. "Not about my father, Lelouch. Please, don't ask me further about that."

"I won't ask you. That I promise."

"Then… is it Shirley? You want my advice?"

"No." Lelouch swallowed. "Put the things she says out of your mind." Did this mean, then, that Suzaku honestly had no clue?

"Oh. Okay. Um, well then, what?" Suzaku's eyes expanded in the darkness of the classroom. "You're scaring me at this point more than Arthur ever does." Innocent, Suzaku waited, supposing not at all that Lelouch had darker intent.

He sighed and went to lean against the window. A smudge streaked the glass, but Lelouch look right through it.

Suzaku stayed where he was. He milled about the empty desks. Lelouch watched his reflection, and remembered, too, to check the doorknob. Despite that suddenly Lelouch wished hard for some blazing distraction, the only thing that moved at last was Suzaku, poking at someone's abandoned pencil.

Would this be a useless conversation, if they had it? Suzaku hadn't analyzed the chemistry between them. It was only Lelouch who dwelt on it, just him, and whatever sparks occasionally rose between them, smoldering…. Well, it didn't need to merit action, did it. It didn't even need to merit answers. Not if thus far it only piqued, and stifled, and drove insane one curious party.

It was like Lelouch had decided before, in the locker room, when it first cropped up. If there was attraction, Lelouch would not make it Suzaku's burden. He'd keep it to himself. Elect to hide it.

He shouldn't have let Milly's talk of casting aside roles seep into him. They were two males. Two males who were friends. They didn't speak of sparks, or their renewed relationship, or their relationship's confusion, even if the mess felt glaring. Lelouch needed to craft a cover, now, for this trip to the classroom.

He wished the phone would ring for Zero. He'd… he'd have to change the subject. Make something up. Tell a story. What would Suzaku want to hear?

Suzaku said, "No, it's fine, Lelouch."

Lelouch turned his head, swiftly closing his mouth. He managed, "But you don't know what I was thinking."

At that statement, Suzaku laughed. A soft, chiding chuckle. He walked to the window.

Lelouch looked back out. Watched his breath fog the glass. Suzaku was too near him. Magnetic attraction….

"There's only one other thing I can imagine you'd come up with."

He didn't like Suzaku's calm. That knowing expression. Lelouch had missed something.

He said to Suzaku, "You're standing too close." Suzaku had come near, and propped an arm against the pane.

"Lelouch," Suzaku murmured. His tone didn't tremble, but his brow furrowed, as if he fought with pain. "Should I ask the question I had at your house?"

Lelouch had lost control of this discussion. He couldn't focus. Suzaku was much too near. He smelled faintly musky and like… buffalo wings. A tang in his nose that recalled him to Guys' Night. They should go back. But Lelouch wasn't moving.

He managed a reply, only half aware that he gave out permission. "Go ahead," he answered. "Ask me, then." He was already responding to the guiding touch of Suzaku's hand.

Suzaku turned him by the hip, so they faced each other. Indecently close. Inches apart… and Lelouch simply let him. He didn't flee. He didn't talk. His compliance seemed to confirm something startling for Suzaku, who froze there a moment, like he'd lost track of his question.

The place where Suzaku's hand touched him felt warm. A heat coalesced in the spot despite his layers of uniform.

"Why do we," Suzaku exhaled, the breath a temptation so close to Lelouch's lips, "keep ending up…" his friend leaned in "…like this?" Nose-to-nose. Tangled up with each other. The swirl in his eyes said he hadn't disliked it.

And there, there it was. Lelouch's whole answer. Wrenching his gut in a twist not unpleasant.

_Suzaku felt it._

Lelouch bit back a groan. Suzaku swallowed, watching it happen.

"Suzaku—" But Lelouch stopped. He gripped the windowsill. Doorknob. He ought to make sure no one witnessed—

Suzaku couldn't seem to shut his mouth. "It's hard to stop, at just this, every time. I keep wondering if I should let it happen more," he said, "something like…?" Suzaku suddenly moved. He tipped Lelouch's face up by the chin. He dipped his mouth to Lelouch's ear and nipped there, lightly. Lelouch froze.

He froze, but like the coldest ice, he burned. He burned in a sweep from his ear to his soles. "You ask… some very inconvenient questions." His tone came strained with the effort of control. He wasn't checking the door any more. "How am I supposed to answer that?"

He could imagine C.C.'s laugh. _You didn't plan for how he might respond?_

With an energy he called up from Geass knew where, he pulled himself away and backed off a step.

Suzaku leaned on the window, looking genuinely shocked. "I read you wrong?" he inquired.

"No, you didn't."

Being so close to Suzaku felt _good_. A second later Lelouch was embarrassed Suzaku knew it. He tried not to measure the taut, fine line where Suzaku's neck met his shoulder, and said, "It's just… why didn't you tell me, if you noticed?"

A flat stare. "You would have denied implications."

Lelouch snapped his mouth closed. Suzaku was brash.

As if Suzaku could sense Lelouch's developing defenses, he caught him by the wrist and held him very gently still. "Is this something you might want?" His careful gaze said, _Or at least want to try?_

"I don't know," Lelouch murmured, gasping, as Suzaku took off again – leaned back in, without permission – and nibbled at his ear some more. As if a spell induced him to complete his focused task. Teeth, exploring, pressing down. The puff of breath. "You're doing things—"

"—too fast?"

"Understatement," Lelouch gasped. His heart pounded quickly. Fingers closed on Suzaku's shoulders, like the grip could ground him there.

"Am I coming on too hard?"

"Where do you even learn phrases like that?"

Suzaku chuckled, detachedly, as if to make sure Lelouch knew he just teased. Lelouch's mind – it was a whirl.

And so he relied on his body instead. His hands moved, fast like Suzaku. His fingers found Suzaku's collar, and swiftly began to undo clasps and buttons.

"I think I understand you, finally," Suzaku said. He ignored Lelouch's need to make a slack mess of his clothes. "You're always lost in thinking. Even now, at least halfway. What happens if you stop, Lelouch?"

Did Suzaku want him to relax? Irony.

Lelouch gave him no answer. His body felt tingly, too tight somehow, as if swelling with both acute need and pride, or caught between. He refused to let Suzaku's murmured words elicit groans.

"_Can_ you stop?" Suzaku asked. "If I were to distract you, more, right now—"

Lelouch did groan, then – implications– and Suzaku's star-bright eyes shot wide. Wider, at Lelouch's sound, because it seemed to cause a sharp reaction in himself. One he hadn't recognized as strongly as Lelouch, Lelouch realized. Until just then.

"Oh," Suzaku rasped, as if becoming lucid, "I think I understand now, too, that I would want it. Badly."

It was his turn to back away, and look something amazed and mortified. He sat himself down in a chair. He twiddled his hands on the desk.

"Now you know why I did nothing, Suzaku." Lelouch's voice was husky. Low. Voluptuous yet hard, like Zero's. "Acting on desire like this means responsibility."

Suzaku's frown seemed turned inward. He said, "I don't think I could help it much, though. Responsibility…. You don't think I'd play with you, Lelouch, like it was nothing?" His voice rose at the end, like a spoken question mark. The crumple of insult and disapproval on his features proved for Lelouch, who hadn't truly thought it, that such a game was not one Suzaku would think of playing.

Good.

Lelouch walked over, splayed a hand atop the desk, and leaned to look in Suzaku's face. Suzaku glanced up and ran his tongue across his lips. "Lelouch. Lelouch, you were right, you know. People could say things. Some might have issues. But still, I—"

"Are you worried about yourself?" He felt impatient. He'd _warned_ Suzaku. And if Suzaku brought up Shirley right now….

"No. Worried about you. Worried about what Nunnally—"

Nunnally. Shirley. He cared for them both. But neither of them made him react like this. Lelouch now threw caution aside like a rug, and walked on the path of recklessness and passion.

If it were Suzaku, it all would be fine. If it were Suzaku, they would find a way to face it. Nunnally would be happy for them, eventually. Shirley would smile. To tread this water with Suzaku…. It felt like a swim that leeched the weariness from bones, and gave pleasant floating sensations. Relief.

"Do you want it?" Lelouch asked him, hoarse. Suzaku's eyes got caught on his lips. He'd moved himself close; his hand cupped Suzaku's cheek.

Lelouch did not wait for Suzaku to reply. The bayou of green eyes announced his position.

"Then take it. Don't just make me wait."

Suzaku followed the order instantly.

He firmly, confidently locked their lips. The last real thought Lelouch had time for was recognition – that he enjoyed not having to give the order twice. Suzaku was compliant.

Suzaku now _kissed_ him.

Lelouch forgot to care about noise.

Suzaku planted his feet flat on the floor and shoved the desk chair out. The metal scraped and whined. Suzaku kept them connected by his hold on Lelouch's hip. It occurred to Lelouch that perhaps Suzaku enjoyed his slim hips, the narrow way they dipped, so he remained standing. Then Lelouch moaned. Suzaku had ceased one kiss only to come back in with another, more demanding. First their lips brushed, then pressed swiftly together, then Lelouch lost reasoning power as Suzaku began to lick and nip.

He needed to breathe. "You're good at this, Suzaku."

"I haven't practiced." Hands, swift, pulling him back.

"_Why _are you so good at this?"

"I haven't really done it."

Lies.

The hell Suzaku hadn't done this before. Lelouch ought to be taking _lessons_ from him. The way he was moving, so natural, responsive…. Lelouch hadn't been bad at it himself exactly, when—

No, not Shirley. He wouldn't think of her. Shirley was gone, ah— but she hadn't complained. And yet kissing Suzaku felt entirely different. Like Lelouch was floundering just to keep up. He couldn't take air, couldn't think, couldn't flee…. Suzaku's fingers squeezed – tantalizing and firm – where they gripped Lelouch's hips, drifting up under the hem of his clothes. Mindlessly, easily, like he thought not at all. Suzaku's neck craned upward where Lelouch's mouth tempted, and then there was nothing but light, panting sounds.

The contact wasn't enough, after a moment. Lelouch did not acknowledge when he moved; he simply did it.

He was straddling Suzaku, sitting across Suzaku's thighs, on the chair, losing control more when Suzaku made a sound.

Lelouch threaded fingers through Suzaku's hair. Suzaku tilted his head back in response to the silent command.

"Suzaku..." His world was tilting, and melting away. Shirley, the Black Knights… all of it, gone. He felt dizzy, heightened, titillated. Zero was something from a different reality, something not part of their touches and sighs. Consequence was something he had fully left behind, at least for now – been released from, in favor of this high.

He wanted so much more of it.

It occurred to Lelouch he hadn't done this before with anyone solely because he hadn't trusted anyone like he trusted Suzaku. There was no one better than Suzaku to give and take this intimacy from him. Shirley had been sweet, but she had not been aware of his mind, or his wants. She was not swift, bold Suzaku – the one who understood him, and held part of him inside himself. Close friends… and now, it seemed, a little more.

Lelouch tugged on Suzaku's hair. Suzaku groaned. It came out loud.

"Mmn," he said, his grip still at Lelouch's hips, "Mn—" A slight shift. "Lelou— ah!"

Their panting mingled. Lelouch's hands roved everywhere. To the nape of Suzaku's neck, down Suzaku's torso, over Suzaku's chiseled abdomen and shoulders. Suzaku's tongue darted against his open, seeking lips. Lelouch let him inside, completely mindblown by the kiss.

It seemed only appropriate that Suzaku should cross lines no one else had. That Lelouch should cross Suzaku's, too. Was there nothing they could not achieve like this, together? Pleasure, even! Pleasure, now. Achieved. Suzaku's tongue was moist, and hot; Lelouch's met it, twirling there, until they broke in tandem on a gasp.

"Y-you're a little more adventurous than I expected." Suzaku could barely form the words.

Lelouch said, "You don't know how often I thought about it."

"That's…." Suzaku's gaze grew deeper. Wanton. "That's… fantastic."

"Fabulous," Lelouch corrected. He kissed Suzaku again, before Suzaku had time to laugh.

He was losing his mind with the feel and the taste; he couldn't get enough of this feverish kissing. To think this simple, direct kind of coupling, with someone so easy to be near, like this... To think it elated, and intoxicated...

To think what Lelouch had been missing.

"But, by the way, how you're sitting, Lelouch, if you stay there—"

"My legs are too weak now to move." He caught up Suzaku by the mouth again. Harder. Gripped Suzaku by his open collar, until Suzaku's pace grew quite fervid and desperate.

"Lelouch," Suzaku breathed, and his name was a beg. "I have to go back to the army tonight."

"Then you shouldn't have come to Guys' Night."

Lelouch didn't mean it. But he wanted no talking, no talking at all. He didn't want the pressure on his lips to start to fade. He would kiss until his lips had turned puffy and tired. He couldn't get enough. He _could not get enough_.

Stopping felt impossible. Suzaku.

"If I go and can't focus, if I can't be ready… and they need… for me to launch..." Suzaku stopped. He hungrily seized Lelouch by the waist, and shifted him close and devoured his jawline – tracing his tongue in swirls down Lelouch's throat. When he had got Lelouch's collar undone? Lelouch shuddered. He arched his back into the touch. His hands scrabbled for purchase against Suzaku's shoulders.

He wondered if Suzaku would take his shirt off if he asked.

But part of his mind hadn't missed Suzaku's words. He eased back into thinking. "To launch?" he said, reluctant. Launch what? Suzaku had said he worked in the technology and engineering sector.

Suzaku stopped kissing him, but only for an instant. Then he said, "Nothing. Launch a project. I'm stressing."

The remark took Lelouch fully out of his haze. Stressing? Right now? In the midst of a kiss?

Suzaku seemed to realize he'd said something wrong. "I didn't mean it like this isn't a pleasant distraction. Ah— not just _distraction_. This is something I wanted. I just meant—"

Suzaku's relaxation disability.

Lelouch used every ounce of mental prowess he had, to lift his mind out of the gutter and assess it. Suzaku, pink-faced, looking hassled and anxious, like someone had given him sugar or coffee. That pained, but hungry look again crossed his features. Lelouch realized he sat flush now against Suzaku's lap.

Slowly, very slowly, he replayed in his head what they two had been doing. Desire swirled and pooled perilously in places Lelouch hadn't dared to consider.

"Perhaps we ought to stop," he whispered, though whispering it was a struggle.

"Yes," uttered Suzaku. It came out high and short and strained. "But not because I didn't like it. Things just went—"

"—too fast," Lelouch responded. It was a chore to keep himself from leaning in again. His voice melted like dark, sensual chocolate. Couldn't help it.

"So, why does this work so well and keep happening like this, really?" Suzaku said, referring to the attraction that had started this. A poor distraction.

"Because it's right," Lelouch intoned. His eyes roved back to Suzaku's lips. Suzaku groaned, while Lelouch let the phrase sit.

_Right_. It was. The one thing to go right in days. _Please don't let it become drama_, Lelouch begged, silently, of any god who still had ears.

"Can I come over after work again soon? If I can make them let me leave?" Suzaku paused. His eyes fell to the floor. "If Zero doesn't do anything else extremely bad?"

Lelouch fought back desire and got off Suzaku's lap.

"Zero won't," he said.

Suzaku said he believed it.


	4. Spilled Milk

**Author** **Note:** _Spoilers up through episode 17, maybe 18. Yeah. Also... teenaged boys are sometimes really tough to write._

* * *

Thoughts of Suzaku had not once left his head.

That was why, when classes the next day at last concluded, Lelouch let go of dignity and jogged back to the clubhouse. He slowed down, just outside his residence.

A lean, male form already waited for him. With windblown hair and mischievous, bright eyes. Those large eyes crinkled even more around the corners when Lelouch neared. He leaned, with one arm, on one of the lofty Greek columns that lined the clubhouse porch. Slouched. And all while he looked much too appealing, as if he didn't know the power of his jaunted hips. Perfect mix of innocence and insolent temptation.

Lelouch wanted to kiss him. Toss him up against the column. Leave him ravaged, hungry. Make him burn until he groaned.

He said, "Stupid jock. You ran."

"And you tried to." Suzaku stifled a laugh. He looked happy. So happy. Lelouch felt relief hit him.

He climbed the three or four short stairs. The breeze found them both and ruffled their hair. Suzaku glanced up, at the yellow ball of sun, and grinned – like the world had birthed this day of birds and flowers just for them.

Lelouch wanted that gaze of keen contentment back on him.

"Did you take good notes in history? We'll study. Then do dinner. We can eat outside, where it's bright and warm. We'll talk about your other classes, too. You've fallen far behind…. I'm sure that Nunnally can also aid you."

"You're going to tutor me?" Suzaku's gaze twinkled. "You know, Lelouch, school has become trouble. For example, that art class this morning…."

Lelouch blinked. The art class that he meant…. Where Lelouch had been forced to become the students' figure model?

Suzaku's green eyes were deepening. He wet his lips, as if caught in a spell. "I may need help in that class, too. It was very, very hard to focus, looking at you…."

Lelouch started, and then he felt a heat. "Was it hard, Suzaku?" he said. His tone picked up a deeper glide. "How hard?" He gave it emphasis. "Indulge me. Tell me just how hard."

He thought nothing of prying eyes. Or ears. At least they stood masked by the column. If possible, Suzaku's gaze swirled in that much more new passion – and in amused surprise. "I didn't think that you were like this. I didn't."

"You shouldn't feel shocked," Lelouch exclaimed, still in his low, quite-unchaste voice. "The whole student council can vouch for my personality." He relished Suzaku's increasing attention.

"It's twisted."

"Just like always. But it seems I've found an outlet."

He'd already closed the distance between them. Suzaku didn't protest whatsoever. In fact, his hand came to rest upon Lelouch's hip – possessively – when Lelouch smoothed Suzaku's fleur-de-lis.

"An outlet?" Suzaku said. "I'm here so you can satisfy your irregular fantasies?" Mock indignation. Lelouch smiled wryly.

"Only the best ones."

"Ah," Suzaku said. "So not the ones you've had about wanting to crush Britannia."

A frown. Except, a playful one. A pout of mock-firmness, from the off-duty soldier. The soldier representing Lelouch's hated nation. Suzaku opened his mouth again.

"I don't know how I feel about that kind of BDSM play."

Lelouch ignored the irritation the remarks inspired, in favor of the pleasant nearness that now overtook them. Such easy, instinctual intimacy. So sweetly, simply automatic. Warm. It felt so natural. "BDSM play?" he said. "With a soldier like you? Such a thing wouldn't work. Your body's already too used to strain and pressure."

"Would you like it if my body started getting used to you?"

Lelouch's pulse fluttered.

"There's time, Lelouch. I don't have to go back tonight." His hand slipped from Lelouch's hip up to his waist, and pulled him closer in.

"You're very good at making it too hard for me to function."

Despite that their flirting seemed awkward, he liked it. He wondered only if they'd started their encounters backward. Wasn't the flirting supposed to come first? And yet, instead, they'd shared a kiss…. Lelouch touched Suzaku's lips, tracing them lightly while he held eye contact.

Suzaku spoke softly against his fingers. Then he licked one. "Hard, Lelouch?"

He started to suck on Lelouch's ring finger. Lelouch's lips parted and the blood in his face rose. The way Suzaku did it, absently, as if it were nothing, and while Lelouch burned…. As soon as the suggestion started, though, Suzaku released him. He left Lelouch dizzy.

"I guess I should be careful," Suzaku said. "Someone who got himself pummeled as a kid, and couldn't run up the shrine path without panting…. I'll need to be gentle. You even skip gym. Do you have a weak constitution, like Kallen?"

Lelouch seized and halted Suzaku's wandering hand. "Don't compare me to a woman." He dropped the hand in favor of Suzaku's golden-dipped uniform. "I'm weak only when it comes to your administrations. And—" he pulled Suzaku flush, making Suzaku's breathing catch "—I'm not the same sour, helpless prince who needs your protection, or your self-righteous consideration, you damn grumpy samurai."

"Hmn, you didn't need it?" Humor glinted in Suzaku's eyes, and it said, _That's not how I remember any of our childhood_.

Lelouch's pulse pounded the way it did when he performed as Zero, on the battlefield. Boldness. Risks. Adrenaline.

"I need something quite different now from what I did back then," Lelouch indicated, far more husky than he'd meant it to come out. It put the seriousness back on Suzaku's face at once.

It felt so good to elicit that reaction.

"God," Suzaku said, missing nothing, when Lelouch pressed himself against his thigh. "Lelouch, that's so…. You're getting—"

"Suzaku!"

A voice. A girl's. They stepped apart.

"And big brother, too – is that who I hear? You're back from class! Is it dinner time yet?"

Such interruptions happened more than Lelouch had ever wanted to admit to.

Lelouch supposed it was the price he paid to wear a mask. He'd chosen to keep this secret from his sister. He wanted to tell her, but it was too soon. Even if she were his trusted young sister…. The more people knew Lelouch valued Suzaku, the more Suzaku might be in danger in the end – from warped people like Mao, or from those who might find out that Lelouch was Zero. His enemies would use Suzaku. Suzaku's safety was delicate enough as it was, thanks to Britannia's harsh, racist reign. So Lelouch made sure to space encounters with Suzaku apart, out of habit, to fend off alert and suspicion. It worked rather well… at first.

The more they were alone together, the more Lelouch felt sure he grew addicted to Suzaku. It wasn't a quality he approved of in people, addiction. In fact, Lelouch felt stricken by it. Longing for one thing that much…. It was weak, and Lelouch's mind couldn't accept it. He ought to have been able to multitask, on higher levels than the average student. He didn't want to die because he daydreamed all about—

Well, about _things_. Things he couldn't deny now.

For a good four days, he delayed meeting Suzaku. Yet Lelouch failed to focus on anything in the meantime. C.C. even commented that he grew sloppy. Careless. Lazy. And that he sent the Black Knights on too many pointless missions.

"You let me order fifteen pizzas, too," she said, but Lelouch hardly listened. "You didn't even notice. Probably because, just a few hours before, that pretty Kururugi had his hands stuffed up your shirt—"

"Follow Tamaki tonight, if you like watching people kiss. He's still blowing money in the ghetto brothels." He hadn't even yelled it, though. Instead Lelouch thought about his schedule, and when he might see Suzaku next.

That was how he fell in deeper than he knew he ought to go.

Nearly every other afternoon now brought Lelouch to where he kissed Suzaku, wildly, deeply, like he would never possess Suzaku enough. He shoved hands into Suzaku's hair, and tugged him whatever which way he desired, and took until Suzaku was left panting, hugging Lelouch around the middle to keep him close. Lelouch drank, every time, of his taste, as if he were an eternally thirsty being.

Rough and commanding and fast, and all breathless. Suzaku's crisp and rugged outdoor scent pervaded. Lips a bit chapped often, after the kisses. But hell if Lelouch ever, ever dared cease it.

"Lelouch," Suzaku managed, gasping, in a rare instant when Lelouch let him breathe, one afternoon on his couch. "Can I ask something?"

"I'd rather not pause." Lelouch looked hungrily on his target. Askew collar. Ruffled hair. A sheen of perspiration and a flush, adding texture and color to Suzaku's face.

Desire incarnate. He wanted and wanted.

"When do we define this?"

It made Lelouch pause after all. "Define, 'define.'" He tried not to frown and rocked back on the cushions.

Suzaku said, "This new level of our relationship." And, unexpectedly, he looked embarrassed.

Lelouch restrained the carnal part of himself, in favor of analysis. "Is there a serious need to define it? If you mean whether it's gay, it's obvious now there's that factor. I don't want you _just_ for the person you are. Your body itself is a strong element." He raked a hand down Suzaku's chest and abdomen and made Suzaku shudder.

Suzaku found it hard to speak. "Yes. Yes, I know. I feel the same. I also understand that you just meant to give a compliment. But. I-I meant more of an emotional definition. A label, for the others. Is this relationship—"

"No, this isn't a relationship, Suzaku."

It was the one point Lelouch knew he felt the clearest on. Suzaku snapped his mouth shut, looking anxious and expectant.

Lelouch said, "It's friendship, like it's always been. You're my friend. My first one - and therefore most important. There isn't a need to define it more than that."

Suzaku found the carpet and looked down, as if reflecting.

Relationships were cheap and almost trivial, Lelouch believed. Men threw their wives and their lovers away. Women ran off in the flash of an instant when someone more suitable deemed to walk by. Defining someone as a significant other meant nothing but staking a claim on their whole. It meant itemizing a living creature, out of emotions like selfishness. Greed. Out of lust that had no merit, because in the end, it was just a kind of over-eating from the luscious plate of life. A prideful indulgence, claiming someone... and also, it was the mark of a status. Status was for people who were cruel, and biased, and felt a need to differentiate themselves from those they thought were lesser. It did not mean the things Lelouch felt for Suzaku.

Suzaku was precious to him as a person, not as a possession. Suzaku was his friend.

"I don't think normal friends usually do this."

"Then we'll define the category first, ourselves," Lelouch insisted.

Lelouch was annoyed. Suzaku had drawn up on the couch, and all Lelouch wanted to do was keep kissing. What was Suzaku so desperate to express?

It hit him. "Are you asking if we two can be called 'lovers?'"

Eyes shifted further. Flushing. Tiny fidgets. "Well..."

"I don't love you," Lelouch announced bluntly. Suzaku's face fell swiftly blank. "I don't love anyone. Nobody but Nunnally, my dearly beloved sister. Love is something dangerous, Suzaku, that people fight for. Love quite nearly made me sick when Mao captured her."

"I—"

"I don't feel it for you. And I never want to."

"That's not what I was asking! It's too soon to really—"

"I have confidence in you, so I know I'll never worry. I'm not scared we'll go wrong. It isn't love, Suzaku. What it is is trust. This is the deepest trust existing. People have it with their friends, and I refuse to throw that trust away for something volatile."

He didn't mean his voice to pick up so much feeling. It was rigid.

"But you forget – there's desire, Lelouch."

"Oh, no, Suzaku. I don't forget that." Lelouch gripped Suzaku's thighs, and held his gaze with a look that said he knew _exactly_ what they two were doing. "Don't we have the right to want whoever we may want? Even our friends?" Suzaku's mouth made a soft line. "Especially friends." Lelouch glided his hands a little higher up Suzaku's firm thighs.

Suzaku gently took Lelouch's wrists and lifted him away.

"Relationship, Lelouch," he whispered. "Opening doors for you. Holding your hand. Telling the others that I'll put you first." Despite his show of control, his gaze wandered Lelouch's body. Jade now darkened into compassion. "That's what I mean, when I ask about this."

"Holding hands... like I do for Nunnally? You still don't make any sense." Lelouch crossed his arms and sighed. "It's tiring. I don't need your guidance; I told you. Opening doors... like you'd do for Euphy? I'm not a responsibility that you need to attend to. Don't start to irk me by assigning us unequal roles."

"Euphy?" Suzaku appeared shocked that Lelouch would bring her up. "I met with her only that once."

"Yet she sent you to school, right after that. And you've mentioned she's good to you."

"I like her, Lelouch. I do. A lot. But she's got nothing to do with—"

"We're friends." Suzaku fell silent when Lelouch announced it. "I'm not like she is to you. Accept it now. You can stay at my house. I'll allow you to touch me. If you need stricter rules to follow, don't kiss anyone other than me. But that's all, Suzaku. Don't change. Don't change anything at all. You and I, the way we are..." Lelouch wanted to trace Suzaku's collarbone. Instead he looked away, frowning and flushing. "This is what I want. Just this."

And he'd do anything to keep it. Even make Zero disappear for days and days.

"Okay," Suzaku said. "Okay. I understand. Don't look so disturbed; I don't think I can stand it." He frowned a little bit himself. "And don't say strange things about Euphy."

"Princess Euphemia," Lelouch replied, allowing it to be taken as chastisement or as teasing, whatever way Suzaku liked. His mind strayed elsewhere. Intimacy… it was tricky.

"Right. Princess Euphy." Suzaku frowned, still distracted. "When do we take this past kissing, at least?"

Lelouch sat back. The question had been modest. There was no pressure, suggestion, or hunger. Suzaku's thoughts weren't on it, in the end; he was content the way they were for now. He simply thought about it due to concern for conventions. Worried about images.

Lelouch, helplessly devious and coy when it came to Suzaku, only thought of implications.

"Well," he said, swallowing thickly, feeling himself lift in light, bubbly ways. He'd try to ease Suzaku's mood. "Whenever you want it, Suzaku, I'll allow it."

He simply couldn't help himself. He trailed long fingers against Suzaku's—

"Ahn!" Suzaku clapped a hand over his mouth, shining as pink as a new-grown strawberry. He moaned around his palm. "Le_louch_..."

That was how new ground was trod. Little by little, and never too fast.

"Is it pleasant?" Lelouch rubbed. "Do you want it right now?"

"God—"

But he did not unbutton Suzaku's pants.

Thus, the afternoons went on. It seemed, after a time, that Suzaku ached for more, but chose instead to keep taking it slow. In case the military called. Or Nunnally rolled in. Or they otherwise were compromised, like so many times they had—

"Lelou~!" Milly called, for him to help her out with council work.

Lelouch decided once and for all that the two of them needed a place completely private. Yet whenever Suzaku asked about Lelouch's room, Lelouch had to divert him. C.C., and all her pizza boxes...! Bad enough Nunnally thought Lelouch was the one getting fat.

C.C. made sure to comment on his shifting priorities and his awful personality. _If you took over the world, it wouldn't be for your sister, would it, Lelouch. It would be so you could lie around in bed with _him_ all day. What an advantage it is to be young, and still believe that life was made for pleasure…._

Lelouch thought she wasn't wrong.

He reflected, between Zero's meetings, on all the ideas Suzaku had been expressing. About their desire, and friendship, and closeness. He watched Suzaku tempt out Nunnally's laughter, over and over, like his sister were a bubbling fountain. Suzaku said he treasured all the time they spent together. His chemistry with Nunnally, even after seven years, had failed to change – a point Lelouch appreciated more than he'd ever let on. At the tea table one day, Lelouch added the final touches to his plan. The one he'd tried to come up with ever since he'd confirmed Suzaku's attraction.

"You two get along quite well."

"Like always," Nunnally said, and grinned. Suzaku laughed softly and said, "She's right, Lelouch. I almost like her more than you."

His light tone teased. His eyes said something else. It wasn't the place for Suzaku to express how much he ached after Lelouch, but Lelouch felt warmed by his friend's effort to please and flatter them both nonetheless.

"Please continue your game together, then."

He mused. Suzaku couldn't be Nunnally's bodyguard. It would be too suspicious to appoint Nunnally one, anyhow; someone might suspect her true identity as an important personage. Besides that, Suzaku had given himself to the military. _Two_ jobs were out of the question. As it was, Suzaku was failing recently to master his studies. And even if Lelouch could have claimed status as a prince, no one would let him name Suzaku – a Number – as his sister's sole protector. No – Suzaku could never be a knight, or a bodyguard, or hold any station near it.

But he could continue to be a good friend.

Lelouch would deepen their relationship. Beyond time at the clubhouse, beyond locked lips and satisfaction. Such an increased, intense friendship, though, required a formal proposal. Almost like a royal ceremony, thought Lelouch, only there'd be no audience. It'd be the two of them, alone together.

Lelouch would ask Suzaku to stay by their sides. Together for always. For Nunnally's sake. Nunnally needed Suzaku as protector, and if Suzaku agreed, Lelouch could tell his sister about their shared attraction, and they'd coexist together like a happy family.

They sat there, with their origami, while Suzaku started making noises like a frog. Nunnally giggled.

Lelouch decided there was no time like the present to begin to launch his plan.

Just then, Suzaku's tall, female superior jogged up. She looked a little haggard, but Lelouch thought she was pretty. It struck him that Suzaku had such a good-looking coworker; he wondered if Suzaku worked with very many more. Then, he almost kicked himself. It really didn't matter. When Suzaku wasn't with the army, Suzaku came to _him_.

_Jealousy is nothing like me. I should stop. It's a waste of energy._

Suzaku had to leave. Right then.

Lelouch decided instantly to revoke his self-scolding. Yes, his jealousy was merited. And he had lots of energy. Lelouch stood up abruptly, causing Nunnally to turn.

"When you come back…" Lelouch began.

Suzaku laughed a little, and told him the request sounded like it'd be scary.

_But really, _Lelouch thought, watching Suzaku go, _the scary thing is that you're Britannia's dog._

He helped Nunnally to carry in her papers. Then he went to see C.C.

Lelouch was unnerved to find her at his laptop, scrolling through his hidden data with all files open.

"How did you manage that, witch?" he demanded. "I trust you after Narita, but that doesn't just mean I'll—"

"So then," C.C. cut him off, in monotone. "Zero has no interest in rescuing Tohdoh, that miracle man, before it's too late? You lied to his four holy comrades?" She went on to tell him about Tohdoh's execution schedule.

Lelouch agreed that they couldn't stand by. The Black Knights went in that night, confident in numbers. Lelouch knew exactly how to motivate a man so very like a samurai. The path was straight and true. He didn't need Tohdoh's Four Holy Blades to guarantee Tohdoh's cooperation. But after his speech in which Tohdoh came over, Zero felt inflated indeed to have Tohdoh – and his Four Blades – charging the battlefield with Kallen.

All in all, an easy operation. Even the path to Tohdoh's cell had been cleared, just like child's play. And despite that damned, white-headed Knightmare Frame that showed up everywhere….

Tohdoh sheared the cockpit open and revealed its pilot.

The result broke Lelouch's mind, like a light bulb that had burst.

No… he didn't leave his Burai, after the truth rent him speechless that night. He didn't react, for a very long time. He ceased even to feel. Or perhaps the things he felt were cold and emptiness. Hollowness, in which the silence cried and screamed at him. Except, eventually, Lelouch laughed.

C.C. was the one to finally force him into bed.

"Did you know, at Narita, C.C., when you walked up and touched it?!"

"Stop acting like a selfish child. Go to bed."

"All this time, C.C., in all these battles—!"

"I told you that to walk the path of kings meant isolation. Take the victories you have and don't cry over spilled milk, Lelouch."

Suzaku was anything but mere spilled milk. He fisted the sheets that C.C. wrapped around him, grim, and begged silently of the gods. _If this is true, then allow me to reverse it. _He'd give it up, Geass. His plan. All his vengeance. He'd take Nunnally and Suzaku far away, to a distant rural place. He'd—

No. He wouldn't.

Silence.

No. Lelouch was Zero.

He'd become that for a reason. Not even the naïveté or resistance of his dearest friend would stop him; he knew it with firm, fast conviction. Too late to reverse it, once blood had been shed.

Lelouch at last fell frightfully quiet. Anger and resentment boiled in him like a black concoction, filling all the crags inside him no one else could see. Despite it, his mind began ticking afresh, to think if it couldn't turn fate to his sweet benefit.

"You've upset the bed."

She'd already yanked Lelouch's shirt off for him. Smoothed his hair.

It struck Lelouch that he reclined, bare, stripped from the waist up, under his temper-rumpled covers. A beautiful woman leaned over him, a vision even with her harsh, pale expression. Her actions weren't intimate. They were purposeful, helpful. Elegant, even. She moved like a fairy more than a cruel witch.

"Thank you, C.C." He didn't face her as he said it.

Others would kill for his position. Their own lovely enchantress, to grace their bedside and give hard advice? Men so needed that power – especially when they'd been kicked to the ground.

That was why Lelouch would keep on using what she'd given.

Geass. For men who would be kings and shift the world.

Even if the cost of its power became like an opponent in a game of chess he couldn't win, Lelouch would keep on playing the game, until he lost it. If he couldn't at least do that much, he would rather die. He'd welcome death. Life with no control, with no free will…. He'd told C.C. he'd end it.

In the end, Lelouch was Lelouch. Not even Suzaku revealed in his flight suit could damage the nerve that Lelouch relied on. When Diethard Ried alerted him that Euphemia li Britannia had named herself a knight, Lelouch just cocked his head and said, "Oh? I see. The princess becomes bold."

His nature was made of a curdling fury. Of cold calculation, and star lead-role acting. Even now, he burned too hot to lose. Lelouch would endure.

He called Suzaku on his phone.

"I heard," he said. "Congratulations."

"You heard? Already? Sh-sheesh, what a pain."

"Is it a pain, to be knight to the princess?"

"A pain that I couldn't tell you this myself."

Suzaku's voice, though cool, carried annoyance. Lelouch overall found him rather together. He wanted to shake him. Demand, tonelessly, _Why did you agree? _Or worse, he'd cry, _Did they even allow you a choice? You're so stupid. Why are you this stupid, Suzaku? _If Suzaku had never joined the military, this would not have happened. Suzaku had zero foresight.

But more than blame honest Suzaku, Lelouch blamed and despised Euphemia. Hated her, at least right then – for her selfish, reckless, brilliant move. Why had she secured Suzaku Kururugi? Why, instead of him? She'd taken him right out from under Lelouch's careful nose.

They really were relatives, weren't they.

The problem was that now Suzaku's peril would expand. Because Euphy had made a young Eleven her first knight, Suzaku was in more danger than he'd ever been before. Lelouch hoped that Suzaku's raised status and Euphemia's endorsements might at least provide more freedom… but respect, for Suzaku, would now never be won. Soldiers would resent him. Nobles would scorn him. An angry Japanese might want to kill him.

Lelouch kept all his thoughts inside.

"It's business," he said, into the receiver, "right? You aren't required to tell me your career decisions ahead of time." He kept his tone cool, bored, and light.

A silence passed. Then Suzaku said, "My God, Lelouch. You're furious."

_Tch._

"Furious," he exclaimed, "isn't quite the proper word."

Suzaku said, "Livid? Apoplectic? Incensed?"

He'd studied for his next English vocabulary quiz.

"You fool," Lelouch whispered. He wanted to weep. He tied his mental mask on even tighter. "I'm proud of you." He lied. "This is a stellar achievement, at your station. I don't know what you did to make my half-sister adore you, but her reasons are in all probability very much like Nunnally's. I mean it, Suzaku. Congratulations. You'll make a…." He faltered. "A beautiful knight." _Beautiful. _A perfect, painful word. And at least the part about Euphy's feelings for Suzaku were true. "If you really don't mind becoming her knight and taking on those duties, then you know that I'll support you."

"Really?" Suzaku's breath filled up the earpiece. The boy was relieved. Lelouch tried not to let it hurt. But then, as if at once recalling something else, Suzaku's tone grew tense again.

"When they showed me on the TV station, inside Lancelot… did that…?"

Lelouch's clenching hand very nearly crushed his cell phone. The pain, however, failed to taint his voice – the way he wanted it. "As for that, my concern for your safety is indescribable, Suzaku. But I'd be willing to believe it, if you told me you thought hard about that decision."

He could feel Suzaku cringe. "Ah, well, that. Um… it wasn't a decision. I was the best part they had. I-It's like—"

"You told me you were on the research team. Remember?"

"It—it is research. I didn't lie."

"Experimental piloting?" Lelouch let his voice lift. "Your life is on the line, so they can test and collect data?" He would kill them, maybe. All of them. All Lelouch needed was one more excuse.

"That's—"

A knock sounded on Zero's door. Lelouch hooked an index finger inside his inner facemask, poised to pull it up again to conceal his nose and mouth. "Later," he said to Suzaku, swiftly. Was it Ohgi knocking, or Diethard? Maybe Kallen. "I want to see you again, when you can. Until then, my deepest felicitations for your knighthood stand."

He realized too late that he'd spoken formally. The knocking had re-sounded; his mind had slipped – out of necessity – straight into Zero's.

If Suzaku found the vocal shift odd, he uttered nothing. He said, "I'll be back soon. I'll come to school again after the ceremony."

"Very well." Lelouch hung up the call. He donned his helmet just in time.

His door hissed open. Diethard entered.

"I didn't think the Black Knights were so crude they couldn't wait for Zero to respond to a knock."

"It's important," Diethard told him, "and I happened to hear the sound of your voice. I borrowed Ohgi's access code to enter. Pardon me for the intrusion, but matters have taken a disturbing turn."

"'Borrowed' Ohgi's code?" asked Zero, darkly. "I was on a private call. Don't step beyond your place, Diethard, or the results will be unpleasant."

"My apologies to you again, but it's necessary to discuss the Kururugi issue."

Lelouch moved not one muscle.

"Kyoto was on the line moments ago. They're desperately curious about how we intend to act regarding him."

Lelouch let Diethard stand there, while he snapped his gloves to readjust them. "Everyone is curious, Diethard. That is human nature at its simplest. Allow their curiosity, but don't be flustered by it. They know they'll only fail if they intend to try for pressure."

Kirihara perhaps wanted to allow his men to vent frustration. Old man…. Clever, but still an ancient relic.

"It's not just about Kyoto, Zero. It's your Black Knights who are curious the most. They know you've taken special interest in Kururugi, since his arrest. They want to know how they're supposed to act after this point, since he's so clearly now denied you." Lelouch didn't let Diethard notice him flinch. "Kyoto simply gives them an excuse to raise discussion. But, Zero, allow me to say… that if discussion waits too long, some of them may take their actions into their own hands."

Diethard was hiding something. Lelouch didn't like it.

"Some of them?" Zero echoed. "Or you would?"

Diethard, wisely, answered him with silence. Lelouch considered, from within the safety of his helmet. Who was most in danger, if Lelouch failed to act quickly? Kallen had been greatly shaken, to find Suzaku piloted the Knightmare she'd been battling. Others, like Ohgi, might sense her disquiet, and interpret it to mean that waiting for Zero's order too long was a poor decision. But would they dare to disobey him?

Lelouch said, "We'll hold a meeting." He needed to buy himself some time.

Diethard said, upon the meeting, they should try assassination.

Later on, C.C. lied down and asked, "If you won't kill him, then why don't you use the Geass? It's simple. You can't? What is it – stubbornness? Friendship? Pride?"

_All of them_, Lelouch gritted.

He went back to school for Suzaku's party, the one Nunnally had insisted on hosting. "I'm happy for Suzaku," she'd said, despite that her own half-sibling had stolen Suzaku's loyalty from her. Realities like that made Lelouch want to be sick.

The sickness went away when he caught Kallen by the wrist. He stared at her pink pouch, with its gleaming, secret knife, and thought, _You'd really kill him for the sake of Zero, Kallen, wouldn't you. _

He wasn't frustrated with her. Besides, surely someone else had put Kallen up to the assassination. Lelouch blamed only himself for how she'd undermined her much-admired idol. He'd let Zero's command fall slack so deeply that this fatal slip occurred.

Suzaku walked up to him. Lelouch thought, _This damn pit is getting too deep. I'll get you out. I swear it, Suzaku, for Nunnally's sake. _And… for his own sake, he knew.

For the cursed way his blood caught fire, simply looking on Suzaku's tousled hair.

Suzaku smiled. Lelouch felt possessive. Fiercely, sharply, violently determined. Suzaku would be his. Somehow. Some way. His, if Lelouch had to heave up the whole Tokyo Settlement to get it. He wanted Suzaku – and wanted him hard – in a way that no longer focused simply on the sexual. The way he'd wanted Suzaku from the beginning resurfaced. Suzaku should be his ally in his fight for equality and justice.

But the sexual aspect was what drew in Suzaku. Lelouch dismissed serious conversation, when Suzaku reminded him that he'd had an important matter to discuss.

Instead, they fell to assessing each other. Suzaku's eyes roved Lelouch's body, darkening mischievously. Lelouch did not have need to fake his own expression; he determined the encounter with Tohdoh had left Suzaku physically unharmed, and healthy, so he smiled.

"What are you up to tonight?" Suzaku asked.

Lelouch answered, "Not had enough celebration?"

"As a matter of fact, Lelouch, I—"

And Earl Asplund came in, with Nina at his hip – his odd researcher-fannypack. Milly looked hassled, and Rivalz went mad, so Suzaku took off to the rescue at once.

_This is how easy_, Lelouch mused, bitter, _is it to lose track of a thing that you want._

Before Suzaku left again, he snagged Lelouch's arm. "A rain check on our date?" he said.

"It isn't raining. And it's not—"

"—a date. I knew you'd say that. You were pouting a bit." It seemed like he'd lean in to kiss Lelouch's cheek.

He didn't. Suzaku left, with a distracted wave, leaving Lelouch dizzy for just a moment.

The level of the loss was small, but the knowledge didn't stop the daggers in Lelouch's chest.


	5. Euphemia

**Author Note:** _This story… is made of mediocre writing. I apologize, for essentially yaoifying all of Code Geass in this hasty, shameless fashion. (I do it to sucker my friends into cosplay.) Oh, you didn't know that this fic planned to follow canon, yaoifying? Now you do. Although, I still don't know how I'll handle the ending of the series. Hmn, to keep it canon-ish, or to try something new?__Anyway, spoilers up through episode 23 of the first season._

_Also a note - I severely glossed over events at Kaminejima. I recognize I suck for that, because that island episode had so much damn potential. For example, HOW THE HELL DID THEY EVEN GET ON THAT ISLAND? However, if lack of answers to such questions deeply bugs you, please refer to my separate fanfic, _**What If**_, for some answers._

_(See what I did there? You all thought I was robbing you and then I gave you something better.)_

_Thank you all for reading, as always. I enjoy talking to all of you in messages and in reviews._

* * *

The Gawain was his consolation prize.

Lelouch told himself those words over and over, battening down the Knightmare Frame aboard the submarine. Kallen leapt limberly into Ohgi's arms, and her lips flooded stories that Lelouch didn't deny. Lelouch didn't know if Kallen's nerves had finally calmed, or if adrenaline still ruled, and that explained her fountain-talk. In any case, Zero allowed her excitement to flow — and even looked aside to let her whack Tamaki twice, when Tamaki suggested that her nakedness alone was what had kept Suzaku from killing her.

Suzaku. God, Lelouch had gone and used—

The Gawain was his consolation prize.

"Anyway, Zero was brilliant! Really brilliant! The way he managed those controls—"

"The brilliant one was you, Kallen." While Zero watched, and as his ace begin to flush, Ohgi slipped up quietly and asked him what had really happened on that island.

The truth was, Lelouch didn't know. Suzaku's reactions had been well beyond control. And worse, to meet Euphemia again, and reveal his identity only to hear her wish they could go back to being children...

What the hell had Lelouch done?

C.C. said it best, when he came back into his quarters, after she was finished calling Tamaki bad names. "You're selfish and a coward," she said. Lelouch couldn't reply.

She asked him for a pizza. He gave her the telephone.

"Order it for when we're back on land," he said. Then he added, "I did it for _him_."

C.C. made him repeat himself.

"I did it for Suzaku's sake, C.C.."

"No, about the pizza. One more time." But she sat up, and watched him with her sharp gold eyes.

"I couldn't let him die," Lelouch announced. "Even if he's Euphie's knight, I need him here for Nunnally. As well, I need him here for me. If he wants to die, then I'll give him reasons to live, and if a reason isn't good enough... Then yes, C.C., I'll simply force his life. I can't lose. Even if it is cowardly. Selfish."

"You stole his will. You must know that he won't forgive you."

"If he can't, I'll be prepared for that."

"What about your romantic involvement with him? If he learns—"

"Then that's a cross I'll have to bear!" The hanger for his Zero suit went flying from the closet. A moment later, Lelouch bent and picked it up.

He said, "At least Lakshata's making use of our new Gawain. Get up and do something here yourself. Teach Tamaki another lesson." Lelouch mumbled, "That guy needs it."

C.C. didn't move for a long time. Lelouch stripped down and headed for the shower.

When the Chinese Federation butted its nose where it didn't belong, and it became time to raid the Fukuoka Base, Lelouch had already made up his mind.

He didn't care if Suzaku could forgive him. Lelouch would rescue him, again and again.

And so, Lelouch kept to his decision. He used the Hadron canons on the Gawain to melt the Lancelot's attackers. He gave Suzaku's Knightmare Frame a new energy filler, kneeling the Gawain down to offer the gift, as if he were a knight just like Suzaku. Lelouch didn't readily concede to partner-work, or like indebting himself, but this was different. This was for Suzaku. There was nothing he and Suzaku could not achieve together.

Even if Suzaku didn't know Zero was him, Lelouch would wait, and lend his help. Lelouch would keep Suzaku near. He'd watch and sweep in, again and again, to save Suzaku Kururugi's life.

Lelouch could be a patient man. He'd win Suzaku over, in time.

Kyuushu was a great success, and life returned to normal after that. As normal, at least, as Ashford would allow.

Lelouch had to find Suzaku, at the start of another school festival. This one was open to the public, and Elevens, and Milly had him running duties in circles. Zero had to stay on call as well. Media insects were crawling around, and Lelouch hardly had time to spend with Nunnally, but relief made him complacent. Zero's life was improving again. Lelouch felt optimistic; there'd been gains that he could see. Nothing else would hold him down.

Not even that Suzaku frowned when Lelouch walked up.

"Is it about the pizza?" Suzaku asked, as he leaned against a tree in the shade. The shadows made his face look grim. Open books balanced in each of his hands. "I'm refreshing about the Ganymede's controls right now. Don't worry, I'm going to make sure the act is flawless."

"There's so much about you that's flawless, Suzaku, I doubt that you could ruin pizza."

Suzaku closed the books. He looked down at his feet and deeply sighed. The reaction was not what Lelouch expected. He thought perhaps that Suzaku could use a hug. Both of them could, possibly. Wasn't a hug to celebrate? They had much to be grateful for, despite the messes Zero and Suzaku had gotten in of late. Suzaku was _alive_. And though Zero had seen him, many times, Lelouch had not. For ages.

His whole body could feel that. He longed after a physical reunion.

Suzaku said, "Um."

Lelouch repeated, "Um?"

If he hadn't been so intent on preserving Suzaku's life, in the cockpit of the Lancelot when they'd told him to die to capture Zero… something else would have occurred inside that cockpit, Lelouch was quite sure. And god, it felt so nice to have the luxury again of reckless thoughts like that again.

"I've missed you, Suzaku." He moved for the embrace.

Suzaku stepped back. Then he dropped his books. Flinched.

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry. I just— No, let me get those. I'm the one who dropped them."

"You're worried what the school will think still, if we're caught together?"

"No."

Lelouch gave Suzaku his book, and refused to overanalyze. Maybe Suzaku didn't feel well today. Maybe Nunnally or Sayoko could help with medicine. Or—

"Is it stress?" Lelouch asked, suddenly. "Is there too much that's on your mind?" Perhaps Suzaku couldn't think of intimacy while he was distracted by outside events.

Suzaku's face dropped. Then Lelouch knew. 'Too much' was still understatement.

"I gave Euphy her emblem back," said Suzaku, pacing a circle around the tree. "I quit knighthood. I got sunburned on an island, and I injured the Lancelot, somehow, getting there. Before that, Zero came along, and slipped right through my fingertips. His methods were despicable. Except he won. I broke the rules—"

"Stop, Suzaku. Slow down."

"—and something's wrong with me, after it. Wrong. It's started to affect the people I was on good terms with. Cécile is feeding me even worse food. Cornelia either favors me by now or wants me dead, and I can't tell which any more. Everyone else... they look at me strangely. With hatred. Suspicion. Much worse than before. It's not that I mind taking my share of abuse, but... I disgraced myself, in their eyes. I disgraced myself in _mine_. The tests they're doing because of my failures make me have to change my exercise routine. That was what kept me focused. I keep thinking of my father."

"Suzaku."

"And then I worked with Zero, Lelouch! With Zero, the person I really can't stand! We took people down. I thought it was right, because our goals were the same at the time. But I still know his methods overall are wrong, so I'm sick with myself for the way I caved in. Euphy gave me her emblem back... so I belong to her again. I accepted it, because her efforts are pure, and I want her success so that this Area will thrive. I like her, Lelouch, but somehow, still... I don't feel right. It's like my resolve—"

Lelouch abruptly seized and hugged him.

Suzaku stopped his pacing, then. "Is it really that bad?" he asked, in a whisper. "I-I'm sorry. It's not; I shouldn't have made such a fuss. You don't have to..."

"Let me bear the pain. Or some of it." His throat burned, saying the words.

Lelouch's hands trembled. He laced his fingers in Suzaku's hair. He didn't relent, even when Suzaku squirmed. He felt Suzaku glance around them and falter, making excuses and apologizing more. After a time, though, Suzaku relaxed, and Lelouch just held him, wishing he could crush the pain.

Lelouch only let go when two passing girl students squealed. He stepped back, smoothing his uniform. The sun wasn't hot, but his face heated up. He coughed. Suzaku said hi to them.

When the girls were gone, Suzaku rolled his shoulders. He looked upon Lelouch as if he'd seen a magician's trick. "You know, I feel better," he said, marveling.

"Physical contact can often heal an injured psyche."

"Injured psyche?" Suzaku ruffled his hair. "Isn't that too a bit too far?"

"You're the one who said that there was something wrong with you. If you ask me, though, it seems you're better than before. You've been too reckless, Suzaku. You could have even died."

Suzaku winced.

"It's good that you found a strong reason to live, and came back here to Nunnally and I." Lelouch only had to force his smile a little. "Good that, again, Zero saved you from death. I'm beginning to think that I owe him something."

"Speaking of that," Suzaku said, "I doubt he can help with our school festival. I'll be dead another time, if I don't get this pizza right."

"Don't joke," Lelouch said, resisting the urge for a kiss. It was broad daylight, at a festival, and people toted cameras, but his want was overflowing.

Suzaku grinned. Milly buzzed Lelouch's headset. Tasks were meted out, executed, and more were established. Lelouch ran back and forth like mad, and got surprised to find Kallen had dragged herself to school.

An incident in the storage room occurred. To think even Oghi had shown up in there...

C.C.'s fault. Lelouch used pink gas, leftover from the Pride Day stock. In the end, Lelouch enjoyed himself. If he messed up, he'd cause no casualties involving death.

Then Euphemia showed up.

It wasn't that Lelouch never wanted to see her. Well, he _didn't_, but she was his sister. He'd never act cruelly or turn her away, especially not when Nunnally enjoyed her company. In a way, Lelouch enjoyed it too. Euphie was sweet like a bite of white cake.

But this kind of incident couldn't go on. Zero could never support Euphie's methods.

Lelouch sat on the steps and they talked. How to convey his conflicted opinions? He ended up just focusing on Euphie's quiet merits. What did Suzaku like most about her? Her innocence? Her sense of humor, or her boldness? It couldn't be the incessantly formal way she spoke, ever inch the flowery princess.

Or was it? Suzaku was too accepting of Britannia's race and class distinctions, and slightly, sickly hungry for all kinds of degradation.

Lelouch's train of thought chugged that direction. He wondered, vaguely, if he should tap into that masochism of Suzaku's in a sexual sense. Imagine that kind of control, used for the sake of satisfaction, pleasure…. But Lelouch shook his head and focused on his conversation.

He should be striving hard to force the Britannia out of the soldier, so long as the soldier refused to be forced out of Britannia.

A gust of wind blew hard, revealing Euphie's hidden presence. The following jostle ratcheted Lelouch's heart rate up.

Running was rough, and even rougher while gripping the handles of Nunnally's wheelchair. He ducked them both inside a booth, and it was there that Lelouch came to an anxious realization, scanning Nunnally's face when she exclaimed that Suzaku and Euphie made a lovely couple.

They could never, ever go back to the past, but also… it wasn't safe to bring the past forward beside them.

For Britannia to change, the only way to move was surely, marching in a line and going forward, just like time did. That was why Euphie's Special Administrative Zone of Japan was doomed to fail. Acknowledging Japan, when Japan was in the past, or trying to allow the Japanese to keep their title…. The world would never have that old Japan it craved again. Japan had _died_, and what presided now was different. Or it would _become_ different, for the sake of moving on. The past helped formed the future, yes, but only because people ought to learn from it. Lelouch believed that to charge forward, there were very few paths that _didn't_ require leaving a host of ideas, places, and people behind.

Lelouch and Nunnally had two pasts. One was with Euphemia, with whom they had played in the gardens with Marianne. The other had begun when royal life was tossed aside; the other past involved Suzaku, who'd taught them about friendship at the shrine. Neither past could be regained. That much had been obvious ever since Suzaku had shown himself years later, a soldier of Britannia before a capsule full of 'poison gas.' The bond they'd had when they were kids could never be regained, and if Suzaku were to move with Lelouch toward the future, it would have to be admitted that the movement would be changed. Lelouch understood bits would be left behind.

Euphemia li Britannia didn't. She _tried_ to look toward the future, but her vision wasn't far enough, and her toes still dipped in the past.

Lelouch watched Euphie give her speech, wondering how their present lives had come to this. He couldn't accept that Euphie sought to consolidate the separate things she cared about, using her Administrative Zone as cover. She hadn't considered consequences for the masses. Deep down, Lelouch too had a desire to pull all hispasts and all his beloved friends together, but at least he knew that such a life was just a pipedream. He couldn't say Euphie's intentions were bad. Who didn't wish for an ideal situation? If Lelouch could have both Suzaku and Euphie on his side… wouldn't that be grand. Yes, grand. At least for him.

Not for Nunnally. Not for the world. It was naïve.

"Nunnally, you…." Lelouch held her hand and understood her secret feelings.

To move forward with both Euphie and Suzaku would sow discord deep within his sister's soul. While Suzaku may adore Euphie, and Nunnally may adore both Euphie and Suzaku, Suzaku's closeness to Euphie still affected Nunnally.

Nunnally wished to be Suzaku's primary someone, his reason to smile, to laugh, and to live. Lelouch wanted to let her be that person. He'd wanted that from the very beginning. His sexual foray with Suzaku would not get in the way, he thought. Nunnally wouldn't be jealous about such closeness, when Lelouch finally deigned to talk about it. Nunnally was too pure for that naughtiness herself; she would be happy holding hands with Suzaku and exchanging feathered cheek-kisses. She would be happy that Lelouch was happy and satisfied by Suzaku's… attentions. But she did desire someone who could give her companionship, when Lelouch couldn't. That was why….

If Nunnally couldn't bear to see Suzaku giving that care to Euphemia instead... Lelouch would never let it happen — past, present, or future.

Thus, Euphie's naïveté regarding the political aspect of her Administrative Zone was only part of it. Lelouch had an even clearer reason why he could not wind Euphie back into his life. Why Zero could not ever partner with her.

Euphie stood there, posed in Ganymede's hand, and Lelouch made a choice about what Zero would say, if he had to answer her address to him.

When hysteria was over, and Euphemia had gone, Suzaku jumped down from Ganymede. He said, "Oh god. Oh no. The pizza."

Nunnally laughed. They talked about Euphie's proposal. Lelouch looked in vain for C.C., near the pine tree draped in pizza dough. A laughing Suzaku pulled him back, to ask about his dinner plans.

Lelouch had never seen Suzaku so relaxed, so enormously elated, as he was when they met back up in the storage room that evening.

Quiet blanketed the campus now. The public had at last dispersed. Only the smell of popcorn and fried dough wafted faintly in their wake. Lelouch had trailed some crushed confetti in along the concrete floor, but the festival was the last event now on his pleasure-melted mind.

"I feel better," Suzaku said. "Much better." He kissed Lelouch's jaw line, persistent. "With this, Euphie thinks Zero will—"

"I was there. I heard her. Don't stop."

His jacket sat strewn on a heap of blue tarps. His shirt flapped open like a sail. Suzaku's hand trailed his pale, bare skin, and if he wasn't given more…. Lelouch feared what he'd do to demand satisfaction.

"But Lelouch, like I said, I worked with Zero. Euphie thinks that she can, too. Don't you understand? I won't feel bad, if Zero can make his methods match hers. And mine. He can try to redeem himself. Then things like Shirley's father won't…."

"Suzaku," Lelouch just groaned. Suzaku shut up long enough to lap and kiss his collarbone.

Yes, if they could work together, in some world of dreams, there would be bliss. Lelouch would have preferred it. Suzaku, Euphie, and Zero. But this world was Britannia. Emperor Charles reigned, and undeniably corrupted.

"What do you think this is?" Lelouch intoned.

"Huh?" Suzaku pulled away and blinked at him. His eyes were pleasure-clouded, his lips parted and moist. Lelouch took the sight in and moaned. "This is us touching a lot, in the storehouse where we shouldn't. You're really, really, _really _hard."

Lelouch, to his credit, didn't flush for once. "You, too."

"I want some more," Suzaku said huskily. He brushed a thumb across Lelouch's nipple.

Lelouch cried out and arched his back. Suzaku's touch short-circuited his mind. He couldn't think, but somehow he managed, "If you could just stop mentioning Euphemia…."

"I like her, though." Hot sliding against skin. Suzaku's mouth along his chest. His tongue twirled, hard against the nipple he'd made pert, which made Lelouch's hips jerk — and the back of his throat vibrate when he whined.

Suzaku looked surprised, and then he seized Lelouch's hips, using them to steer Lelouch into a wall of boxes. "Not yet."

"She's… my half-sister," Lelouch said, to give himself something to focus on besides desire. He fisted his hand in Suzaku's clothing. "You can't—"

"Lelouch, it's not like that. At least, I still don't think so. I think she is to me what Nunnally is to you."

Suzaku unbuttoned his pants.

"Aah!" Lelouch's grip tightened on Suzaku's shoulders. The palm of Suzaku's hand began to press, through black pant-fabric, rubbing and stroking. He twisted the angle just right, working his wrist. Lelouch choked on a gasp and his knees began to weaken.

"I want to do horrible things to you," said Suzaku. His voice dropped low.

"That's—Suzaku, ah, _ahh-!_ Th-they aren't horrible…."

"Then?" Then word went with a stroke.

"Whatever you're thinking, _just do it_," Lelouch told him.

Suzaku needed no more prodding than that. He went down on his knees. He yanked Lelouch's pants to expose his thighs. His hand closed over where Lelouch was slick and hard, _without _the fabric in between his grip this time. Lelouch nearly sobbed, wanting it, and seized Suzaku's tousled hair. And then—

"I think I saw him…?" Female voice.

"Oh ho ho, I bet he's—AAGH?!"

Suzaku was upright faster than a shot, trapping and protecting Lelouch from view against the wall. "Oh, my god," he hissed, "Lloyd saw—"

"Cécile-kun? Don't walk over there. It's more nature than science, it seems, and we want a Devicer. I say—"

Lelouch decided he wanted to die. Zero and all thoughts of living be damned.

Suzaku straightened their clothes, becoming calm. Then, like the masochistic idiot he was, Suzaku went around the corner, looked down the aisle at Earl Lloyd Asplund, and said hi.

"Sorry to disturb you both," Suzaku said. "Were you looking for me?" He ruffled his hair.

Lelouch would rip his ball sack off. They could have fled. Or pretended not to be there. Or used more of that hot pink gas—

Lloyd replied, "Ahaha, that should be _my_ line, shouldn't it?"

"What on earth— Suzaku, your clothes!" Suzaku looked down to find them quite violently wrinkled.

The slender, pretty coworker Lelouch had grown familiar with revealed herself at the same time Lelouch did. Lelouch coolly brushed his bangs, and stood with his arms folded. He made up a perfect lie.

"Oh?" he drawled. "Good evening. We were conducting an anatomy lesson. We couldn't find the dummy doll they use in class, when we were sent out here to search. Therefore, we had to compromise. It's imperative Suzaku studies."

It was Suzaku's turn to smile nervously, and look at Lelouch as if Lelouch were the one stupid. "Ah, well um. Actually…."

The woman said, "You're that boy Suzaku was…." She stopped. "Ahem. Anatomy?"

Lloyd mumbled, "Is that what people call that act these days?"

"Correct," Lelouch announced, coolly, using the moment to slide past Suzaku. He couldn't afford to spend too much time near military personnel…. He would escape. But first….

He felt that tingle rare up in his Geass eye.

Something clicked on the pretty woman's face. Suzaku uttered an audible groan. "Cécile-san," Suzaku told her, "Please. I didn't mean for you to see—" He stepped into Lelouch's line of sight. Inwardly, Lelouch began to curse. How was he supposed to get them out of this?

"Suzaku," Cécile's smile prickled. "We came to take you back after your fun."

"Fun? To let him use that word—"

"Lloyd," the woman grabbed Lloyd by the ear. "Let's allow these two young men to _say a proper, nice goodbye, _before we drag Suzaku to work. Okay, Suzaku? We'll be waiting for you."

Lelouch looked between them, and forgot Geass entirely.

Then he was glad he was actually Zero. He didn't have a pair of bosses who would never let him live this down.

The odd couple left, with the earl hauled by the ear. When they were gone, Suzaku said, "Are you very hard any more, Lelouch?"

"That's a dumb question," Lelouch replied.

"It was going well. I didn't get bitten by Arthur."

"I locked him in the conference room this time."

"I don't think that we can finish anything, before they really will expect me back."

"You were considering it?" Lelouch stood stricken. Then he grinned. He told Suzaku to wait before he left.

Suzaku, a little bit ahead, and in the shadow of some boxes in the aisle, stopped on Lelouch's command. Lelouch ran fingers down his cheek.

"I like you when you aren't so stressed."

"I like it, too."

"Then come again."

Lelouch let Suzaku sweep his fingers up and kiss them. He felt warm.

"It's been a long time, Suzaku." They still had barely gone past kiss. Tonight would have been perfect to explore….

"I have to be with Euphie now."

"Even so." He wanted them to stay like this.

Suzaku made him promises. Lelouch helped him collect his things. He walked Suzaku halfway to the truck his supervisors rode in.

"I'll tell Cécile to convince Lloyd that he was dreaming," Suzaku said, waving goodbye. Lelouch wondered if this was part of his skewed urge for punishment.

Lelouch did not see Suzaku again, until the Gawain touched down in Euphie's Special Administrative Zone.

It turned out things had gone too far. She really was a formidable opponent. Left and right, Elevens – Japanese – flocked to Euphie's zone to be accepted. The Black Knights found themselves forced to make friends with the corner in which they'd been boxed; dignity suffered. Not to participate in the proceedings now, when Euphie had become a great success, would have meant dissolution for his band. The breakdown of the organization Lelouch had sold his soul and lost whole nights of sleep to form.

He had never expected Euphie to charm the world. He'd simply have to take his opposition to a higher level.

Zero went inside her mobile G1 base, with a ceramic gun they didn't find, and strove not to look at Suzaku in his white-and-gold uniform as he strode by.

He shut the cameras down, once safe inside. He yelled. He threatened.

But Euphemia beat him.

"I decided for Nunnally's sake," she said.

Lelouch gave Euphie his gloved hand, and in that moment, understood that he'd been bitter, wrong. He thought of Suzaku, waiting outside, blindly trusting both Euphemia and him. Suzaku had wished for this result with all his heart. The least Lelouch could do, now that he'd been made such a fool, was concede to Suzaku's wishes and give him a better world.

His ego, though, was slightly bruised. He couldn't help boasting, to make up for his lost pride. Euphie giggled at him. Lelouch teased.

He gave her a command that he had never meant to give.

After that, nothing could be stopped. To see her… dripping so much blood… tossing herself into the task, with a will only she could have, after she had tried and failed to oppose his cursed Geass…. Lelouch thought that his heart would stop. He hardly heard a thing that C.C. said, back in the Gawain.

What could he do? What was there to be done, but the one thing he had been doing from the start?

Shedding blood, so that blood shed wasn't in vain.

So he exploited Euphie to the end. He sullied her name the way the blood sullied her dress. He fought back all his shudders, and climbed back out of Gawain. She was perhaps the first girl who had taught him how to love.

Lelouch, aiming swiftly, taught her how to die.

He didn't move, when the Lancelot swept in and scooped her limp form in its arms.

Even C.C. couldn't speak words that took the tremble out of his voice in the aftermath. Nunnally called, and didn't know Euphie had died, and that was so much worse than having pulled the trigger.

"Go home," C.C. said quietly, and the pity was more than Lelouch wanted to bear. "Your sister is your reason to fight, is she not? If you abandon her now because you're scared the truth will hurt her, you'll be doing more harm than good."

"I'll go," he said. "But after this, I…." He didn't think he could go back. To look upon Ashford's bright lawns, where Euphie had so recently flounced…. No, he would pack a small gym bag. Tell Sayoko that he was taking a vacation.

Now that he couldn't control the Geass, he'd have to say goodbye to everyone.

That morning, Lelouch wandered his way home. Even though the Black Knights all across Japan moved toward the Settlement… even though Lelouch knew he must ready them for battle…. He had to comfort Nunnally, and see her one more time, to remind himself why he must fight. She was the only person who could comfort him. She was the only person who would never suffer from his uncontrollable Geass. She couldn't see him.

She couldn't see him cry.

When Lelouch walked inside, behind a somber-faced Sayoko, Suzaku was already there. Lelouch stopped dead, watching him hold Nunnally's hand.

"And that's what happened?" Nunnally's voice shook.

Lelouch wondered how much of what Suzaku told her had been truth or sweetened lies. He resented Suzaku for being beside Nunnally, for the first time in his short life. Lelouch would have told _every_ lie, with no discrimination, just to keep the girl from sobbing.

Still, as he watched the two of them shed tears, and squeeze each other's hands like the contact would sustain them, he knew that C.C. had been right. It would have caused more harm to keep Nunnally from the truth.

"Suzaku. Nunnally," he said.

Suzaku didn't turn Lelouch's way. "She was kind, always, and she wanted a world where people our age could be free to just be students…."

A lump rose in Lelouch's throat. He couldn't bear to see Suzaku weeping so, and so he looked away instead. But Suzaku's voice rent his heart as he went on. Memories, emotions, regret and fury.

Nunnally held Suzaku's head against her lap, caring not at all for how his tears dampened her skirt.

"I hate myself, for trusting Zero. Even for an instant. Even when she promised it would be okay! But Euphie never liked it when I seemed to feel like that. She told me she would love me, if I only didn't hate myself…."

Love? Lelouch's fisted a hand. His heart beat rapidly. Suzaku sobbed.

"For someone so sudden, to suddenly die! She was full of life, Euphie! I know she wouldn't… ever pick up a gun… and shoot…. I don't know… what got into her…." His words fell apart like a sandcastle in a tide. He cried on Nunnally so hard he couldn't speak.

Nunnally said, "Oh, I-I can't bear—and Suzaku, it's the hardest on you—" But her voice faltered, with regret, sorrow, and guilt. Guilty because, not long ago, she'd been slightly jealous of Euphie's closeness to Suzaku. Now she felt terrible for it. Lelouch felt terrible that she was wracked by pain.

Lelouch watched the two people he cared for the most – cared for more than the whole _world_ – break down and cry. His own tears suddenly dried up. The path of carnage… caused by his own Geass. What right had he, Lelouch, to cry, when he had hurt Suzaku and Nunnally?

Quietly, Lelouch retreated from the room. He let Sayoko tend them, and he went to don his mask.


	6. Viruses

_**Author Note**__**: **__Longest chapter yet, and I hope it packs a punch. (Finally, the R2 complications that I wanted!) _**Anja-chan**_ has let me know that my re-capping sucks, so I've cut some of that, and I will try to keep it cut in future chapters. Not much else to say, except…._

_Don't read this if you haven't seen through episode 5 of R2._

_And, leave me a review, I guess? Hearing everyone's reactions really gets my juices flowing. FFN is full of some extremely thoughtful readers!_

* * *

The problem with having a mind that worked with incredible processing power was that, despite how Lelouch backed up his system, there were still times when his hard drive could crash. He experienced a crash that he couldn't come back from, when Suzaku dragged him in front of his father.

Lelouch had thought he'd done a virus scan. During their phone call, he had asked himself some probing questions. Was he _thinking _about what Suzaku was saying, about the skies of Tokyo that evening? Did Lelouch completely understand what Suzaku meant, when Suzaku talked about being consumed now by hatred? Suzaku had killed his own father. Suzaku was a soldier. Now rules couldn't hold him. He would take off after Zero.

That meant murder, if Suzaku found him. It meant there'd be _murder_, Lelouch processed numbly.

Still, Lelouch had no reason to panic. His death was the worst outcome he could think up, and so he had simply continued to plan. He didn't tell Suzaku that Suzaku's murderous goals were wrong. It'd be hypocritical, to express such a thing. Even though the person Suzaku sought to kill was _him_…. Lelouch would have to allow him to try. If Lelouch died, then Suzaku was right; Lelouch was wrong. But if Lelouch lived….

If he lived, he would never turn back. That was why he couldn't tell Suzaku to turn back, either. Lelouch couldn't deny that Suzaku's voice sent chills like pennies rolling down his spine, but he told himself, _I can – no, I _will_ – stand without flinching under Suzaku's stare, if meeting him as Zero is a thing that has to happen._

He'd done enough backup, or so he had thought. That was why Lelouch carried a gun, and a vial of liquid Sakuradite he could strap to his heart and threaten to explode. He knew the virus that was Suzaku would find him. Lelouch assumed from the start he could be followed. He wasn't surprised when Suzaku shot his mask off.

But afterward, Lelouch realized he'd still managed to make a grave mistake.

Lelouch had forgotten that viruses mutate. Change, morph, and grow, into what couldn't be fought. Suzaku had become unpredictable now, and Lelouch fell apart when he realized it had happened. On the floor of that great throne room – insulted, battered, completely denied – Lelouch understood that he was losing not just Nunnally, but also Suzaku. Losing Suzaku forever. _Forever_, because a cog in Suzaku's mind had shifted, and now there was no winning Suzaku back.

And so, Suzaku sold Lelouch out, after all they'd done and shared. Because Suzaku wanted to advance. Because Lelouch was Zero… and Suzaku an opportunist.

And so Lelouch's hard drive crashed. It crashed so hard, he didn't realize when he walked out of the throne room that he'd been given a fake world, and the sun he squinted at contentedly was really darkness.

But even in the blackest darkness, people find the light somehow.

Lelouch found it, with the help of his supporters. He thought the reboot had been C.C.'s long kiss.

Only now, back at Ashford, staring at the boy who blocked the whiteboard, did Lelouch decide that this, here, now…. _This_ was the real reset button. Suzaku, walking toward him stiffly, with his emerald eyes like stones.

Lelouch wiped his features of expression – all but those he needed to act.

Reboot.

Reset. This time, take nothing for granted.

Take nothing at face value and trust absolutely no one. Take bigger risks, but don't waste time, and never assume risk-taking has less a chance of failure just because the choices made are choices rare and wild. Assume the worst might happen, and will, and this time multiply results of that by ten. Then understand the real result could _still_ be worse than anything at all imagined.

_Prepare_, Lelouch thought, to the beat of Suzaku's steps, _for the possibility that Nunnally is really dead. That Suzaku will kill me, too._

That Lelouch might destroy the world, but fail in his attempts to rebuild it.

Suzaku's shoes scuffed to a halt. The classroom paused, as they two looked at one another.

Charles had erased three memories – of Nunnally, of Zero, and of the fact that Lelouch had been a prince. But he hadn't erased anything to do with Suzaku specifically. Lelouch, while Geassed, had recalled who Suzaku was, because of school and the student council. Their shared childhood had been wiped away, but as for basic recognition, and a certain old attraction….

Lelouch twitched his hand, while Villetta Nu hid her smirk rather poorly. Lelouch realized something like he'd been slapped with a sheet of steel wool. Why hadn't the emperor erased the memories of their intimacy?

Why hadn't Suzaku _asked_ Charles to?

They made eye contact, green and purple – holding, seeking, judging… loathing. Suzaku did not blink once.

Suzaku had been in a position to have any request that he wanted granted. Their old desire, their attraction should have been the first of memories to disappear.

Surely Suzaku didn't intend to pick up where they'd left off? That would be…. That would be just….

"It's been a long time," they said to each other, and Lelouch began to churn like a volcano inside. A volcano with nothing it could do but bide its time.

The class calmed down, and homeroom formally commenced.

"I'd like us to meet on the roof," Lelouch told Suzaku when the bell rang afterward, since he wasn't sure the sign they'd made up – tugging the collar – would be valid any longer. Now more than ever, Lelouch couldn't give himself away. He had to meet his challenges this time, before they could creep up and meet him.

Suzaku answered, "Oh? And why?"

Lelouch just repeated, "It's been a long time."

_That_ sat between them until after lunch. Lunch happened on the lawn, where the student council asked questions about Zero. Pretending in front of all their friends was good practice for where Lelouch knew he and Suzaku would be headed. Still, Lelouch didn't take pride in it. It was his fault all of their friends had fake memories. His, and also…. Yes. Suzaku's.

Lelouch acted calm, but he stewed like a pot roast, until finally the last classroom bell rang. He smoothed his Ashford uniform and made his way up an emptying set of stairs.

On the roof, the clouds made stretched-out cotton candy layers of pink and purple. Lelouch watched students heading home. Shirley waved to Rivalz from the grass. She and Milly, it looked like, were going to spend the twilight hours completing further preparations for the garden. They wanted to grow roses, of every bright color. Rivalz appeared to be headed for a bike ride.

Gone were the days Lelouch sat in his sidecar.

"It's going to be a fantastic sunset."

Lelouch turned around, pasting on a cool expression. "There's no better place to be," he answered, wistful.

Suzaku's face remained colorless, empty – uninhabited Tupperware that only pretended to be flexible. Lelouch wondered if he recalled how to smile.

It was the first human thought Lelouch had had toward Suzaku, since being hauled to Charles that night. Nothing had been easier than banishing Suzaku to the recesses of his mind, once he'd regained the life Charles had removed. Lelouch hated Suzaku now from the darkest, deepest pits inside his soul, but he'd refused to let his hate seep forward while busy re-attaining Zero's world.

He wouldn't change his methods now, even with Suzaku standing before him. To Lelouch right now, Suzaku meant nothing. Lelouch refused to feel the stab wound of Suzaku's betrayal any more.

The time to mourn had come and gone. Lelouch moved on to greater things.

He let the wind play with his hair. He waited for Suzaku to show his hand, ready to weigh Suzaku's intentions.

"I've been watching you closely all day," Suzaku said. He leaned on the railing.

So, cutting to the chase, Lelouch thought.

"And?" asked Lelouch. "What did you see?"

"Somebody whose smile is a little bit too guiltless. Somebody too interested when all his friends were chatting."

Suzaku thought that normally Lelouch acted rude? Disinterested? Perhaps that was the truth, but Lelouch didn't miss Suzaku's layers of suggestion. Suzaku was accusing Lelouch right now of appearing too clean and too involved – therefore, Lelouch must be hiding something.

Suzaku thought "something" was his memories, returned. Lelouch had come armed and prepared to lead Suzaku away from those suspicions. Simply denying it would have been twice as suspicious, however.

"You're right," Lelouch said easily, "and you've caught me, Suzaku. I've been lying to everyone about something important."

Suzaku breathed out his nose, very slowly. Lelouch watched his eyes transform from blank to wholly dead and dim. "I see," Suzaku said, in his dark monotone, not even bothering to turn his head. The look was the look he'd worn, identifying the face he hadn't wanted to believe was behind Zero's mask, despite his completely expecting it to be there.

Lelouch – as with the first time – kept his strength up in the face of Suzaku's emptiness.

He mirrored Suzaku's smooth lean on the railing, so that their elbows nearly touched. Suzaku shifted away. Lelouch pretended not to notice.

"I've just been bored," he told Suzaku. "I'm discontented, deep inside. It's a bit of frustration, tension… maybe depression. I've been pretending to take interest in more than I really do, in hopes that maybe true interest or some enthusiasm will develop. Maybe it's because I know that soon I'll graduate and I still don't know where to go with my life."

Suzaku showed no signs of reaction.

"I'm not interested in work, or even gambling any more. I sometimes get the feeling that my life is… pointless, now. It's because our whole world is a mess. Nothing has changed, even after a rebellion like Zero's, and I feel helpless knowing that. What's the point in _anyone's_ ambition, if not even our best efforts can stand against these awful times? Sometimes I wake up at night, half-believing I had something I once wanted to accomplish. Something I created for the sake of improving lives, the world… but then I can't remember what my plan was any more."

This time, Suzaku looked up. He frown turned very faintly deeper. Lelouch went on, outlining the symptoms that had been caused by his father's Geass. Symptoms he'd come to know and hate, the more they'd pricked at him, in all that time.

"There's no motivation left in my heart. These feelings… they're nags in the back of my head, too hidden to become outwardly destructive, but all the same, they're there. I don't know what the point is of existing, Suzaku. I don't like my life any more, because so much feels fake around me."

Suzaku's hands slipped off the railing. He faced Lelouch so that his hair was framed by sky.

Lelouch didn't have to tap into a lie, to make his tumble of words come out real. The sense of something wrong he'd felt, that gnawing frustration that life was so empty… those valiant efforts to take risks in the adult world to fill the void, only to realize the void still existed….

Lelouch had become the waste of potential that Kallen had once accused him of being, before she'd known that he was really Zero.

In front of Kallen, his lack of motivation had always been acting. What Suzaku had done had made that act reality.

_You robbed me of my drive. My very core. You made me a herd animal, a creature with no purpose. A wasted human life. I would have died without achieving anything._

Lelouch let Suzaku's gaze rake him, search his words for hidden, poison meaning. Whatever conclusions Suzaku settled on, Lelouch didn't care and did not intend to change them.

If Suzaku wanted to have suspicions, he'd take Lelouch's confession as reproach. A sign of conflict. He'd think Lelouch was saying, _Do you see what you've done? See the way I hate you for it? I think you were very wrong._ If Suzaku decided Lelouch _wasn't_ Zero, he'd feel guilty instead, for erasing such an important part of his friend's personality – especially now that said friend was expressing inner turmoil.

Either way, Lelouch could work with it.

"Do you have a problem with peace?" Suzaku asked.

It became Lelouch's turn to shift around. He made sure to keep his arms loose at his sides. He looked into green eyes and said, "Suzaku, do you call what Britannia has done lately _peace?_"

"Then you believe in Zero's side?"

"No, I don't, because Zero failed. There's plenty wrong with how he operated, and no guarantee that this new one who showed up will do any better than what was previously tried. I thought we'd discussed this. I thought you agreed." Lelouch frowned. "What he did to Euphemia…."

"There are lines are your forehead. You're worked up about something more."

"No, I'm not worked up. I just don't get how you think our current lives are better, or how you can say Britannia's a better entity than Zero."

The wind blew, and Suzaku took a moment to answer.

"Maybe our lives aren't better," Suzaku said at last. "But in all, everyone's lives are going to be. And it will come through better methods. Lelouch, you have a life now that's relaxed, and full of nothing but goodness—"

"I have a life where I'm privileged and helpless."

"—and there are no evil influences here to drag you down. You should use your brilliant mind to do something positive, if you want to find purpose and develop motivation. If you can't do that, at least enjoy going to school. Your life is a beautiful picture-book image; you're normal, you're loved, and you're safer not fighting. There's no excuse for you not to be happy."

"Ah, listen to you. I think _you're_ the one worked up."

"Lelouch."

Lelouch's stomach flipped. He heard more in Suzaku's voice than his name.

All Lelouch did was smile, complacently. If he didn't, the volcano would blow.

So that's what the memory wipe was about? Suzaku believed he was giving Lelouch a chance to start over, on a path better than Zero's? Yet who had set that path? Suzaku? The emperor? Rolo and Viletta? Had anyone dared to ask _him_ what he wanted?

He couldn't believe it. Suzaku thought allowing Charles to Geass him was _saving_ him? Protecting Lelouch. From who? Himself? From the taint of the Geass? From his past as a prince, that had driven him to try his damndest to destroy Britannia? How was removing _Nunnally _supposed to make him happy? As if Rolo were any kind of substitute!

And Suzaku was supposed to hate him. Hate Zero, and wish for Zero to be murdered. What was this farce, then – a change of heart, before dragging Lelouch to the throne room? These kinds of mixed signals were not acceptable. Did Suzaku really think Lelouch would become happy, peaceful, if he were given some sort of clean slate? Was a new life for Lelouch somehow more preferable to Suzaku than having Lelouch's blood on his hands? As if, by rewriting Lelouch instead of killing him, Suzaku could change or lessen the reality of the fact that he was already on the path of carnage the same as Lelouch was, as Zero! How despicable!

Lelouch's hands trembled, but he hid their shaking behind his sleeves.

Suzaku should have slit Lelouch's throat. Should have pulled the trigger and aimed better. Exploded the Sakuradite. Very bad, that Suzaku hadn't done so. Bad, that Suzaku had been naïve enough to think Lelouch's core beliefs would change, even with Geass, because….

Because now, Lelouch was going to ruin him. _Destroy _Suzaku from the inside out, and feel nothing whatever as he did it. He would fight until he couldn't any more.

Suzaku announced, "You're unhappy again."

Lelouch could not stem an explosion, he realized. And so, as not to compromise himself, he simply exploded the way that he wanted.

"Of course I'm not; it doesn't take a detective to see it! Do you want to know why I'm angry, Suzaku?"

He would take all the stoppers out. He'd play his role so well Suzaku would never know what hit him. He didn't raise his voice, but he put some iron in it – keeping the words false, but the emotion behind them real.

"Think about the way you came back to Ashford, after being gone so long. You came into class, and you didn't even smile. You _left_, Suzaku. You just left _me_. I know you picked the military. I know you got promoted and you went to the E.U.. But let me make one thing quite clear. When I told you I didn't want this to be a relationship—" he prodded Suzaku in the chest, letting his voice break a little on purpose "—I didn't mean it was okay to ignore me for almost a year, and then come back and even _halfway_ expect I wouldn't have a thousand reasons to be curt with you."

Suzaku caught Lelouch's hand mid-prod. He looked between Lelouch's fingers and Lelouch's eyes. His lips parted.

Lelouch did not have Suzaku convinced that he was innocent; that Lelouch well knew. But… Lelouch had managed to draw out guilt. Suzaku, whether there was reason to feel it or not, was always quick to punish himself for actions, using guilt inside his head. In this case, the problem was not that Suzaku had abandoned an innocent, rewritten Lelouch – it was that _if_ Suzaku's suspicions were wrong and _if _Lelouch was innocent… Suzaku _might _have. The _might _alone was enough to fully stall him. The suggestion something _could _be wrong was just as effective as if Suzaku had been _proven_ wrong.

Ever masochistic, brimming with his infinite types of self-hatred. Lelouch felt equally sickened and triumphant.

He used it to his advantage. He did something he didn't want to do, but needed to do – to gauge how difficult it would be to render Suzaku a total non-threat. To determine where this had to go.

Lelouch wrenched his arm free, and grabbed Suzaku by the collar. He crashed their lips together and made sure his hands were trembling. Suzaku's lips – windblown and chapped – remained tightly closed. Lelouch remembered that they were more pliant after he'd been laughing, always.

Suzaku did absolutely nothing. Then shock registered, little by little. And emptiness, from Lelouch's side.

Lelouch felt nothing. The kiss was going well, despite not going anywhere in those tense seconds. He understood that he had played his cards right.

Suzaku had thought Lelouch so guilty, he hadn't imagined Lelouch might attempt _this_. Suzaku didn't think even a sly, play-acting Lelouch would go this far to convince Suzaku of his innocence. He'd banked on the assumption that Lelouch hated him too much to be able to stomach a move like a kiss.

Suzaku had probably been waiting around, for the right moment to use their old attraction to his own benefit. He would touch Lelouch, or flirt, and wait for Lelouch to flinch away, then say triumphantly, _You're not able to pretend to want me. That's how I know that you've turned into Zero._

Which was precisely why Lelouch had needed to move first. If Suzaku was still determined, still had any kind of brains, he'd understand that he'd just lost, and he'd play along while he tried to recover. He'd kiss Lelouch back, to uphold the façade, and hope instead to trip Lelouch up in the future.

Suzaku wrenched himself away.

Lelouch realized that he'd been giving Suzaku too much credit.

Even better! Lelouch wanted to laugh. Even easier this way. Lelouch caught a glimpse of the look on Suzaku's face, before Suzaku composed himself, and he thought, _You make it so easy to win._

Horror, disgust, and unadulterated hatred splashed Suzaku's features, mixed with tinges of illness at the sudden intimacy pressed on him. He looked poised to murder Lelouch with bare hands, but he gained control of himself at the last second.

Lelouch wanted to laugh until he dropped, standing there at the onset of twilight. Suzaku couldn't stomach the idea of their intimacy any more than Lelouch could, but Lelouch knew how to fake anything, and therefore, Lelouch was the one now on top. He couldn't have asked for a sweeter revenge.

He feigned hurt. "Are we over, then? Did you meet someone else abroad?"

Suzaku forced himself to stand up taller. Smoothed his face. "It's nothing like that."

"Well," said Lelouch, and it took all his skill to keep his smirk of victory at bay, "then I don't see the issue with a kiss."

"My… my mind," Suzaku struggled, "is still… somewhere in battle, I guess. I haven't done this in a while. My head is a little—"

"Addled by your celibacy?" Lelouch took two steps to close the gap between them, reaching boldly for between Suzaku's legs.

Suzaku paled and snatched Lelouch's wrist. For half an instant, Lelouch worried Suzaku might actually pass out with the strain of concealing his hatred.

To the green-eyed boy's credit, Suzaku said, "I flew in just this morning, you know, and haven't showered. You might want to let me, before those things happen."

"A fair buy for time," Lelouch replied. "I'll allow it."

Suzaku looked at him very hard, for a very, very long time.

Shirley called up from the lawn. Something about the trellises, and carrying them to where they planned to build the garden. Suzaku let go of Lelouch's wrist, while Lelouch reflected that some things never changed.

"Tonight," Suzaku said, still struggling, "I want to see you. Will that be okay?"

"It's almost night right now, and I'm in front of you." He said it brightly.

Suzaku's expression didn't change. "They're throwing a party in three days to welcome me back, but I want alone time. Just the two of us."

"To make up for your bad behavior?"

"And do some other things, as well." Suzaku's eyes trailed down Lelouch's form, with only a hint of his prior sudden illness. In fact, his old familiar brand of suggestion had colored the words.

Lelouch tried not to show his twist of disgust, or feel his victory was newly threatened.

Shirley was calling something else, but Lelouch didn't hear. Suzaku was ready to be just as bold, and treat their intimacy like a game of chicken? Whoever backed out first in loathing lost – Zero versus Knight of Seven? Lelouch hadn't expected him to rise to this so fast.

Or was this comeback something different? Did Suzaku actually intend to continue using Lelouch as his sexual relief, now that Zero had supposedly been cast aside? Maybe Suzaku didn't suspect Lelouch at all, but was merely having difficulty erasing Zero from his thoughts – striving to see his friend without the taint of what he'd hated. The others had been Geassed to forget, but Suzaku had to struggle, had to manage the erasure in his own head by himself.

Why hadn't Suzaku asked Charles to erase the memories of their attraction?

Lelouch thought it through harder this time, while he lifted a coy eyebrow in response to Suzaku's equally coy suggestion. Perhaps, in the end, Suzaku hadn't had as much power during the audience with Charles as Lelouch had assumed. Or, once Suzaku had demanded a Rounds position, Charles had been be unwilling to hear any further wild requests. Additionally….

Requesting a specific erasure would have required telling Charles about the memory in the first place. Suzaku wouldn't have wanted Charles to know about their sexual forays any more than Lelouch would have. So… that meant Charles had either been ignorant of their attraction… or he'd known, and chosen to leave the memories present of his own accord.

Suzaku chuckled very softly, and stepped a foot more toward Lelouch.

Who had told Charles about their attraction? Whoever had told Suzaku about the Geass had known even Lelouch's true identity; it could have been that person, if that person knew that much. But why would _anyone_ specifically desire to leave such complex memories, and put Suzaku in such a strange position? Surely the emperor knew Suzaku's feelings for Lelouch had died with Zero. Suzaku would not have turned Lelouch over if any lingering emotions existed.

Or would he?

"I don't want you to think I didn't miss you, Lelouch."

Was it possible that Suzaku remained conflicted? Was it possible that Charles had foreseen that confliction, and left the memories there as an open invitation? What if Charles had left the memories so that Suzaku would have the power to do _whatever he wanted?_

The thought was maddening and blackly chilling. What might Suzaku do, with power in the form of possibility like that? Use it somehow, to satisfy innocent Lelouch and keep hungry, buried Zero at bay? Use it selfishly, to sate his own satisfaction?

"I want us to do something special," Suzaku was saying, while Lelouch's mental clock ticked in seconds double-timed. "To make up for my absence and my attitude. Okay?"

"Suzaku—"

Suzaku drew close.

Lelouch's thoughts became tangled too quickly. His animal instinct was all he had left, and suddenly it was screaming, in ever fiber of his consciousness, _Don't let him_._ Don't. This is wrong._

Someone, somewhere down the line, had decided to create a loophole for them, in which Suzaku and Lelouch might still continue their intimate interactions – whether the emotions behind them were faked, half-faked, real, or otherwise. The idea of justifying the continuation of a connection that rightfully ought to have been squandered…. This was some sort of mockery. Lelouch felt like he'd vomit, but what was worse… he felt a spark of something else ignite him.

He felt the heat of selfish expectation – at the recognition of a chance. A chance at regaining even a microscopic scrap of—

There was nowhere he could go. Suzaku lifted a hand to his chin. Lelouch had screwed up, and he hated himself.

How could he have lost the upper hand so quickly? Why was Suzaku leaning in for a new kiss? Why was Lelouch shifting into his touch, like they had not tried to _murder each other_ the last time they'd met? Too late, Lelouch understood his mistake. His very human, very damnable reaction.

He had taken his brain and heart into account; his brain and his heart hated Suzaku. Wholly. But Lelouch hadn't considered unquashable human hope, or what his _body_ might still want. His body remembered Suzaku's heated touch.

His body, for so long now, had been thirsty for that union.

Suzaku thought of the body first. And he was using it now, to make Lelouch as uncomfortable as Lelouch had made him with words and that first chaste, scolding kiss.

If Lelouch was innocent, it was Suzaku's apology and oath of renewed trust, his promise of still-present lust.

If Lelouch was Zero, it stood as a warning. _I will expose you, and show them how you're lying_.

Suzaku's warm hand traced Lelouch's hip, sliding around in back possessively, to embrace Lelouch while Lelouch's skin tingled. He wanted to scream for Suzaku not to touch him. He twitched, trying to physically fight against the part of him he couldn't let resurface.

"Wear something nice?" Suzaku pleaded, softly. "It's the rain check, for our date."

"How dashing of you, to remember that exchange."

Suzaku let him go. Lelouch's volcano stood primed for eruption.

He wanted to tell the Black Knights, tell C.C. and Kallen, _Seek and destroy Suzaku Kururugi, at all costs, as number the one priority, and bring me back his head on a plate! _But because of Suzaku and Charles zi Britannia, the Black Knights were not yet rebuilt to full power. He didn't _have_ C.C., or Kallen, or Ohgi right now. Lelouch was alone at school, with friends whose memories didn't match his, a gym coach he couldn't use Geass on, and a fake little brother whose real desires yet remained unclear to him.

For the first time since regaining his identity, Lelouch felt truly run to ground. Perhaps, he could have gotten out… but not with Suzaku, waiting outside his escape hole holding a gun.

Lelouch felt small, timid, and cold, and hated that he'd just been forced to admit it.

As Suzaku walked off the roof, calling for Shirley to wait just a moment, fending off Shirley's yelps about what it looked like they two had just been doing with each other from her distant vantage point, Lelouch wondered how far this would go.

How far, before the two of them became more twisted and scarred than they both were already?

* * *

When Lelouch stepped into the kingdom of twinkles, it was with dark, renewed purpose, a hardened soul, and nothing but his cold and analytic observation. The meeting on the rooftop might as well have never happened; he looked on the pretty garden scene Suzaku had created on the Ashford lawn with lack of interest. A frigid shower and remembrance of his father's eyes had called Lelouch back to his duty as Zero, reminding him that saving Nunnally was a greater priority than any carnal urge he could identify or act on.

Some things, people threw aside – killing their own souls for greater good. Lelouch had been doing just that all along. He had no reason to fall off track now. He looked at the curvy chairs, the neat square table.

Suzaku must have cut Shirley a deal. _I help you move these trellises and tables, you lend me a few of these things for tonight._ Only, it would have come out much more awkward, with neck-scratching and laughing, to cover up truth. Suzaku would have evaded Shirley, when she asked what girl Suzaku wanted to woo.

Once Suzaku had shaken her off, though, he would have set to stringing up the lights with a purposeful air. Perhaps a melody-less hum. The work would have made Suzaku forget what he was planning for. Lelouch couldn't blame him for wanting to deny it.

A fantastic array of appetizers dotted the table. Suzaku could probably polish off two or three on his own. Lelouch wondered where Suzaku had procured all the food. He was stricken, as well, to see that two champagne glasses and a bottle glimmered, catching the lights and throwing around sparkles.

Lelouch remembered thinking once that alcohol possessed a power of its own – one that, if used well, could work like the Geass. He told himself he'd be careful tonight, and only pretend to drink it, but Lelouch's mind glossed over it as he took in the perfectly trimmed grass, the perfect wicker chairs, and even more perfectly dressed Suzaku.

Hair looking dark in the intimate lighting. Black pants, a pale, collared shirt, and a tie.

A tie that brought out the jungle in green eyes.

Lelouch affected an exasperated tone. "Was there a need to so intensely overdo it?"

Suzaku stood up to greet him, grimly. Lelouch tried not to let his face crumble, watching the way Suzaku moved in his fine clothes. He thought, _You didn't even kiss me goodbye. Not once, for all the closeness we had, before you watched everything that made me who I am completely disappear at the word of that man._

But thoughts like that were exactly what he had come here knowing that he needed to stem.

"You've outdone yourself," Lelouch continued. "It's too romantic for a soldier, don't you think?"

"I had help," Suzaku said. Then he blushed. He was genuinely proud of his created scene.

His flush made Lelouch ache for innocent days. God, what was this? Was he simply too tired for staunch resolution, even directly in the face of his enemy? How come he could manage when Suzaku was not around?

Lelouch pretended to examine the scented vines that twined the trellises, but this day had made him remarkably weary. Was deciding to continue the night with Suzaku a foolish errand? Should he have cancelled? All he wanted to do was sink into his pillow, and let his brilliant façades drop. But he couldn't, because Suzaku was set on exposing him.

Always Suzaku's fault, Lelouch's deep turmoil.

"You're secretly impressed, aren't you. Won't you come and sit down?"

Lelouch sat across from Suzaku's chair. Suzaku sat down again as well, after making sure that Lelouch felt settled. They started to discuss all the ingredients inside the appetizers.

To constantly war with the distraction of desire, back when there had still been some... that was one thing – a beast all its own. Lelouch remembered well the challenge of it. But to fight with his base urge to kill, or at least _maim _Suzaku because of what Suzaku had done... It felt maddening, trying to contain the way his anger cropped up now despite his strict mental control. Lelouch felt unhinged, responding in kind to Suzaku's small talk as they politely made it. He wanted simply blood, screaming, and brutal retribution. He wanted to punish Suzaku for betrayal, and punish him again for showing Lelouch glimpses of the friendship they had lost.

_How could you do this to me?! _he ached to screech.

The restraint he'd had during the day, the power to switch off had long worn down now, hadn't it. There was only so much emotional stamina Lelouch possessed. Right now, he was a wild card. Lelouch knew only one clear thing, as he moved in the way he'd planned before arriving.

He'd never _wanted_ to harm anyone, but when he sat there looking at the man he used to kiss, it was torture to subdue his fatal impulses. So instead, Lelouch took all his hate and disguised it – as his desire. The lust an innocent Lelouch should feel, perching across from his object of affection.

He gently caught Suzaku's hand, over a plate of pale cheeses, and held it. "You know," he murmured, casual, "there's no need to do this for me."

He watched Suzaku's act flicker. It showed in a twitch at the edge of his jaw.

Lelouch came to a detached realization, waiting to see what Suzaku would do. Suzaku also fought the frustrations and strains of a new life of falsehoods, a life of bad-tasting lies. Suzaku also must swallow his hatred, and play pretend, and strive not to lose it. But there was a difference between their situations – one that kept Lelouch from any pity whatsoever.

Suzaku had chosen to impose this on himself, this awful state of living, caught between the truth and lies. In a way, Lelouch had chosen life like that as well, but not to this extent. No, never as deeply as this. He _never _would have chosen this state for himself.

And that was why he went another step in baiting Suzaku.

Lelouch moved his grip from Suzaku's hand to Suzaku's cheek. He intended to caress. Suzaku snatched his hand from the air like an insect.

Lelouch feigned a start. Surprise. "Are we, perhaps, a bit high-strung?"

The way Suzaku seized him was too rough. Lelouch remained calm and ignored the pain, as he posed his playful query.

"I'm sorry," said Suzaku. "It's just combat reflexes." He let go in a way that made it seem he had to separately command each of his fingers to release him.

"Ah, well then. It's very impressive. Your strength is an attractive attribute; don't subdue it just for my sake. But still. Why don't you come a little closer?" He watched Suzaku keenly as he spoke.

"Not right now, Lelouch. Drink your champagne."

"Perhaps I have been, and that's why I'm making rude requests."

He'd boxed Suzaku into a corner. Lelouch knew it, and Suzaku did, too. The old Suzaku would have acted by now, piqued and discreetly aroused by suggestion. He would have drawn in, slightly near, and let Lelouch lure him the rest of the way – with words, with smoldering gazes, with the promise of an enticing kiss. The old Suzaku would have tried to hide a smirk, not knowing he failed and just looked ravishing because of it. Lelouch swallowed, and took the responsibility of recreating that kind of scene himself, doing work for two and making sure it still looked natural.

He shifted his chair so it was closer to Suzaku's, disturbing the symmetry of the small table. Suzaku opened his mouth to protest, but Lelouch reached for Suzaku's tie.

He gripped the tie at its neat knot, and began to pull, stretching it loose. The catch in Suzaku's breath rewarded him.

"Lelouch." Reprimanding. "What about the food?"

"It's lovely, Suzaku, but I don't need nonsense." Suzaku didn't move, so Lelouch tugged him harder, until Suzaku at last was obliged to lean in close or cut off blood flow in his neck. "I'm not someone you need to pamper. Unless you pamper me with something very different." He let his eyes rake Suzaku's body.

"You're really thinking dirty, aren't you."

"It's a matter of my basic needs, Suzaku." Suzaku looked at him, like he were in pain that he clearly blamed on Lelouch. With his eyes like stone, he allowed Lelouch to guide him even closer. "Kiss me, Suzaku."

Suzaku obliged.

Lelouch bore it as best he could. It wasn't a natural kiss, by any means. Suzaku tasted a little like champagne. Lelouch had seen him dump his glass in the bushes once or twice, just like Lelouch had, but he'd still had a bit. Their tongues met only accidentally, as they played their game of chicken and took little gentle breaks, to create the excuse of restarting, going slowly. At one point, Suzaku stopped completely dead, refusing to respond when Lelouch trailed fingers against his jaw. Lelouch let out a tiny moan, to prompt him to react as if he meant it. After all, couldn't this be innocent Lelouch? Why deny Lelouch a perfectly good kiss experience?

Lelouch pushed his chair out more, after a time. Kissing while in separate seats was fast becoming tiresome. He hauled Suzaku farther in, still by the tie, but much more merciless this time.

Let his annoyance be interpreted as ardor. Passion and violence were often the same. Suzaku made a sound at him, of struggle or resistance. Lelouch released Suzaku's tie, after rendering it worthless as even a decorative item, and moved for Suzaku's collar instead, so Suzaku was forced to concentrate on what Lelouch was doing next.

Lelouch undid the top button of Suzaku's shirt, exposing the vein that fluttered hard in Suzaku's neck. Suzaku hadn't touched him once, with the exception of the union of their lips; Lelouch was irritated that he still did all the work. He wanted to say, in a voice like autumn leaves, _You can't even pretend for me? Am I not worth at least that much, after I gave you everything I had?_

Lelouch tried harder at the kiss. He tried to move his lips to Suzaku's neck as he exposed it.

Suzaku didn't allow him to even come close. His hands came up to meet Lelouch's own, and hold Lelouch away like he was gripping dirty laundry.

Was it really _that_ awful? The part of Lelouch that was ego – most of him – reacted to that with a surge of resentment. Reacted to that with a grim, renewed effort.

He switched his administrations to Suzaku's fingers.

Suzaku let go of one wrist in surprise. Lelouch caught up Suzaku's free hand and began to use the technique that had once been used on him. He licked along Suzaku's fingers, then took a couple of them in his mouth, twirling his tongue across their tips. Dipping his head and coming up again, a parody of more obscene gestures. Not so obscene as to make Suzaku flinch, but enough to remind him what he liked – Lelouch or no Lelouch.

He prayed it would have the desired effect. At least make Suzaku easier to maneuver.

Suzaku's whole body turned stiff. He promptly snatched his hand away. Lelouch glared at him, challenging him to blow his whole entire operation, daring him to suggest Lelouch was Zero.

Instead of erupt, Suzaku slowly removed his tie. It fell like a snaking ribbon to the grass.

"You're very spoiled, at the moment. I don't think it's fair, to be so damned demanding."

Suzaku almost never swore. He got out of his chair, and rolled up his shirtsleeves – taking the time to button them above his elbows, one after the other.

Lelouch said, recovering quickly, "Masturbation isn't such a useful outlet. Over and over, it's always the same."

"I'm sorry for such unacceptable tension."

Lelouch began to grow uncomfortable. Suzaku undid two more buttons on his shirt, stepped nearer, and Lelouch's light bulb zinged in realization.

Suzaku had decided that indeed, Lelouch was Zero. He had guessed Lelouch was not the least bit turned on by the things they did. So now Suzaku took a gamble.

He gambled that he could intimidate Lelouch into submission – submission being, in this case, a truce. An understanding that would mean Lelouch could feign acceptance of the fact they ought to eat, and thus there'd be no need to take their intimacy farther. Suzaku wanted to find a way to call the acting off at least in part, at least for now, so they didn't have to kiss. And he would do it by playing dirty.

He was giving Lelouch little glimpses of the parts of himself the old Lelouch had liked – his collarbone, his neck and shoulders. His warm, rough hands and smooth skin of his wrists. Lelouch convinced himself it wasn't working. He wasn't dumb enough to completely deny that he understood what his body still wanted – despite _everything_ – but he also wasn't dumb enough to let the realization that Suzaku also understood it and would extort it bully him into self-hatred such that he would now give up.

He was Lelouch, not Suzaku Kururugi. He _admitted_ his weaknesses, shoved them back, and simply worked around them.

But when Suzaku reached up and tousled his brown hair, Lelouch threw everything out the window, and decided he'd _find a way_ to counter the Geass and end Suzaku swiftly, if it killed him.

"You're flushed, Lelouch. But still – why don't we finish the champagne?"

Suzaku leaned over him to pour another glass, and Lelouch started to feel a little sick. Suzaku smelled musky and male and attractive. Suzaku knew exactly what damage he was doing, how he was tossing Lelouch into confliction. The best part was, if Suzaku was wrong… an innocent Lelouch would only watch all this and become desperately aroused by it.

"I don't want to, Suzaku."

Lelouch let it encompass everything he felt, not caring if Suzaku could sense his apprehension. _This isn't right_, he thought again. What was becoming of all they had shared? Was this kind of mockery of themselves… was this kind of sick twist warranted?

Zero and Britannia had never had a thing to do with their attraction. Why taint the one part of their friendship that had been good, the one piece of their interactions that had not been ruined by fate or by bloodshed? Why make their sole good chunk of history a casualty of Geass, Charles and Zero?

"Suzaku," Lelouch began.

"I don't want to hear another word." Suzaku picked up a chocolate-dipped strawberry and brought it to Lelouch's lips.

The farce was more than Lelouch could bear. He knocked the strawberry to the ground.

Suzaku stared at him one instant; his eyes took on that familiar dead gleam. Lelouch's mind went round in loops. He'd gone too far, without thinking. He had to be the first to move, again, before Suzaku could decide anything.

The next thing Lelouch knocked to the ground was his chair. After that, he dragged Suzaku to the grass, too – on top of him.

Suzaku let out a quiet curse.

Lelouch didn't allow Suzaku to speak more. He started feverishly kissing and nipping – any exposed skin that he could reach without a struggle. Suzaku barely caught himself, but he held himself up under vivid assault. Lelouch untucked Suzaku's shirt, as if he yanked apart the wrapping paper on a present. He funneled his frustration and his helplessness into sharp acts that came across hungry and wanton.

He begged. "Suzaku. Don't make me wait. Please, I want you to—" he pulled Suzaku's hair, "—to do horrible things to me."

He made his voice breathy and low. He stole Suzaku's mouth again.

They kissed this time with a little more expression. Lelouch parted his lips, and Suzaku twice slipped his tongue in. Slick, and fast, and wet, and hard, they kissed – grasping and fumbling and shifting position. Lelouch tasted champagne and hesitation, so he thrice renewed his efforts, sliding hands low over Suzaku's abdomen, feeling the cut of the man who could kill him. He bent his knee and ran his outer thigh along Suzaku's inner one, inspiring further friction and motion.

In the moment after Suzaku shuddered, and Lelouch had run fingernails down Suzaku's back, Lelouch realized that he could hear light panting. A symphony of genuine desire. Waking passion.

His.

Suzaku bit down on his lip. Lelouch moaned against his provocative mouth.

The noise made Suzaku stop dead.

There they halted, with the grass pricking Lelouch's back through his threadbare – and now sweat-dampened – shirt, Suzaku with poison in his eyes like greenest swamp water, like chemical acid. Like strange, deadly absinthe. And Lelouch just drank it.

Suzaku said, "It's not because you're tipsy."

"It's not because you are, either." Lelouch let Suzaku's bangs tickle his cheek, when Suzaku pursed his lips and hung his head.

Suzaku whispered. "Lelouch, tell me the truth. Is there something you're hiding?"

"People will always keep secrets, Suzaku." A cricket chirruped somewhere to their left.

"That's not what I asked. Why did you sneak out of the mall past Shirley?"

"You're getting like Rolo. What do you mean, 'sneak?' _I _was the one being snuck up on, by the council president. Shirley knew where I was headed."

"Lelouch, just stop. I can't do this."

"And you think I can?" Lelouch looked aside. He purposely allowed his mask to slip, more than it already had. He threaded fingers into Suzaku's hair. He drew Suzaku down until his lips caressed Suzaku's ear, making his voice a low melody there. "As if I can even _pretend_ to trust you, after what you did to me."

Suzaku shuddered, from head to toe. He made a sound like damp sand under shoes – as if every grain of his faith and his loyalty had just been stepped on. He didn't recover.

Lelouch talked on. "You deserve punishment."

Suzaku gasped, as next Lelouch's teeth pressed into his earlobe. Lelouch licked and nipped, until Suzaku was the one breathless.

Innocent Lelouch was saying, _You shouldn't have left me alone so damn long. I wanted to touch you, so now I'll just tease, and make you feel the frustration I did._

Zero was saying, _Yes, Suzaku. It's me. But I will never let you prove it. I'm completely justified. And by the way, I utterly hate you._

It was Zero's message Suzaku received, louder and clearer than anything else. Just for an instant, Lelouch wanted him to _know_ – that Lelouch vi Britannia was trying to destroy him. He wanted Suzaku to feel guilty, afraid, if only for a heartbeat – before dear Lelouch Lamperouge took it back.

And take it back he did, so he could shut down new suspicion. Lelouch's mind was quicker with his renewed upper hand. He'd set Suzaku's grim assessments into useless spirals.

"Are you all right?" Lelouch asked next, allowing his deep voice to lift in concern. "I'm just trying to satisfy us both. Don't tell me… all this time away has really made you too uptight? You can't enjoy a thing like this?"

"Lelouch. I…."

"Do you want to skip on any intimacy, then, this time?"

"Lelouch—"

"Don't worry. It doesn't make me angry. I forgive you."

Lelouch massaged Suzaku's shoulders, pretending not to notice their uncharacteristic stiffness. He ignored Suzaku's web of frustration and self-hate, preferring to let it wind Suzaku tighter.

"Next time," he said, "just don't abandon your best friend. You won't feel like you do right now."

Suzaku stayed very, very still. Then, silently as a star's light winking out, a tear splashed on Lelouch's cheek.

"Really!" Lelouch cried, chastising him, faking astonishment and confusion.

He held Suzaku closer. Suzaku allowed the guiding touch.

"You can't take the slightest bit of teasing right now, can you! All right – I'm sorry that I got impatient. I'll help you to de-stress a bit, before your welcome party. You did what you had to, Suzaku; everyone understands. You're a knight – of course you want to climb the ranks, and friends have to be cast aside. I promise I won't blame you for keeping so silent. As for my strange depression about my boring life? It's my burden, not yours… and anyway, life's less dull when _you're_ in it."

He smiled. Suzaku buried his face deeper in his shoulder.

"From now on, you and I can take it slow – until things calm down a bit."

Suzaku nodded, but his eyes remained moist.

Inside, Lelouch thought, _Cry, Suzaku._

_Your tears change nothing._

_Zero's going to survive._


	7. Loopholes

_**Author Note:** Don't read this ~ unless you've seen through Episode 6 of R2~ okaaay? Ahaha~._

* * *

Their new status quo was a tentative one – and falsely tender on Lelouch's part. Touches didn't happen unless they were accidental. They exchanged not even one brush of a kiss.

Suzaku acted gallant. Suzaku felt guilty. He tried hard to keep up his end of the act, but it challenged him, and he lost focus; Lelouch watched him get trapped inside the labyrinth plaguing them.

He himself managed to process. Recover. But after two days, Lelouch began to feel bad about what they were doing, too.

He tapped his pencil on his desk now, in class. The plan had been to plant these seeds of self-destruction and help Suzaku destroy himself. Lelouch started to wonder, though – watching Suzaku neglect to take good notes – if the seeds weren't too cruel, even under their warped circumstances.

The teacher said something about collateral damage. Lelouch continued not listening.

Suzaku would torture himself anyway, without Lelouch's subtle aid, Lelouch realized. Did Lelouch really need to micromanage the results, adding to them with vague signals and guilt trips and flirtations? Wasn't that just making himself vindictive – more vindictive than he needed to be? Lelouch should be concentrating on new results as Zero, not on ways to unravel Suzaku thread by glossy, gossamer thread.

He doodled a fleur-de-lis on his notepad. He'd done enough; men were mad and paranoid who poured gasoline onto a fire they'd already set. Lelouch still had his sanity, and thought of his methods as successful and reasonable.

"And so, rumors that Nero played his lyre and possibly sang as the city of Rome burned…."

Suzaku shifted in his chair, and Lelouch halted everything to glance at him.

Something else was happening to them, too. Something much worse than their practice in cruelty. The development made Lelouch want to abort his mission altogether. He wondered if Suzaku noticed it too.

Suzaku reached up to scratch his hair. Lelouch eyed the curve of his neck, feeling an uncertain bolt of desire.

They were falling back into patterns. Electricity flowed once more, a current down Lelouch's spine. He tore his eyes away, before he got caught in his staring.

The teacher droned. Lelouch wished he had C.C., maybe Kallen. Feminine wiles, to offset Suzaku's rippling torso, boyish smile, ruffled hair. Kaguya wanted to be Zero's wife…. Lelouch entertained the thought of allowing it, rolling his pencil around in his hand. Kaguya had green eyes, too, but were they any substitute for Suzaku's forest-deep ones? Ah – but who did Lelouch try to kid? Suzaku's eyes had not sparkled as expressively as Kaguya's for months and months. Instead, they flashed hatred. Or looked deeply torn. Every now and then, they might seem clear and normal, but never were they happy in the way his cousin's were.

And yet… the act had begun to consume them both. It grew easier to _pretend_ they were happy, as lies nearly became the truth. Suzaku would catch himself in a laugh, and then stop, realizing it was only _halfway_ a fake laugh that time, confused. Lelouch did the same, time and time again, stopping short whenever he realized he'd smiled warmly at the memory of a kiss.

Rivalz answered a question for the teacher. "Galba, in 68 C.E.!" He got the answer right for once, but Lelouch didn't chuckle afterward, to see him gloating. He still wasn't paying attention to class.

Something had to change, and fast. Whether Lelouch ought to give up on his act or let it eat him, he didn't know. He only knew he couldn't implicate himself. He didn't want to stay caught in limbo to avoid implication, however.

_Tch. _He'd have to move, and soon. But where to go from here, and how?

Lelouch looked at Suzaku again. Finally, Suzaku seemed to be intent on his history book.

If only he knew what might eradicate Suzaku's suspicions! Should Lelouch still keep distant, or move back to a pretended intimacy? Could Lelouch _handle_ any more intimacy? Lelouch could not deny that after all Suzaku had done – yes, even now – his stomach clenched sometimes, when he caught Suzaku's scent, or met Suzaku's eyes, or looked at the pads of Suzaku's broad hands. Yes, he desired. He couldn't deny it. But did that mean he had to _do_ something with it?

What would Suzaku do with it?

Lelouch entertained a new wild thought, turning a page in his book on ancient empires. What if he and Suzaku could reach a_ different _status quo – one where they did not need to be emotionally close, or pretend to be, but where physical closeness could still be entered into? Could they do that, without compromising their positions? Could Lelouch arrange for only sex?

He wondered it, doing his best not to pinken.

Then Lelouch realized Suzaku would declare love for the Geass before he would ever get intimate with Lelouch again – with Zero, the man he thought Lelouch had twice become.

Yes. Their standpoints had been clear upon Suzaku's arrival. If Lelouch tried anything related to attraction, Suzaku would grow twice as suspicious, and try to slip him up like Rolo had, before Rolo changed sides. And if that happened, Lelouch would get angry – and he would regress to square one again too. "Square one" being active hatred. Unhealthy for both of them.

But at least Lelouch could _consider_ it. He sighed. Was it so wrong, to think about holding on to the small bits of civility they'd managed to achieve, through acting? How come – no matter how he played it out inside his mind – in every scenario, Suzaku reacted to him with pure loathing?

_Is it actually easier, _Lelouch thought, _or less painful for you, if the only thing you feel is hatred?_ The back of Suzaku's head didn't reply. In the end, was that the reason?

"Thusly, again, in successful empire, we see the strong devouring the weak…." The teacher didn't realize there was dandruff on her shoulders.

Did Suzaku _prefer_ to think Lelouch was Zero? Should Lelouch lead him on some more, and give him a glimpse of his true self, to test it? Would risking himself like that truly be worth it?

Would Suzaku stand tall again for once, and strike a sense of goodness and morality into the hearts of those around him, if he believed more strongly again that Lelouch was hiding regained memories? Suzaku might become that old dashing knight, if his hatred for Zero more fully drove him on. Lelouch didn't _want_ to be the object of Suzaku's hatred any more than now he wanted to wear himself out hating Suzaku, but what if making Suzaku think he was Zero was the only way to bring back Suzaku's spark? The only way to guarantee his overall wellbeing?

Lelouch didn't like it, but he wasn't a fan of the alternative, either. He could see changes in Suzaku's body language, if not on Suzaku's face. The same leeching of purpose was now happening to Suzaku, the way it had happened to Lelouch when Charles had Geassed him. Suzaku didn't know why he was fighting any more. He _did_ have Zero, to accuse and oppose, but it struck Lelouch that if the Zero out there now were not _actually_ Lelouch… perhaps Suzaku lost his passion.

A different Zero, a pretender, might not have the same methods and beliefs as Lelouch did, and therefore, battling _him _wouldn't feel quite as potent. Did Suzaku need to face down Lelouch specifically, in order to feel validated and driven? Was it because Suzaku respected Lelouch, despite all that had happened? Did Lelouch matter?

Lelouch put his elbow down hard on his desk. When Rivalz looked over, he feigned a dawning headache. The headache became real, though, as Lelouch clamped a palm against his forehead and kept thinking.

Shirley said, "Yes, Ma'am. The parallels between those Romans and Britannia."

His insides felt constricted and played with. Lelouch's desire to keep Suzaku healthy clashed with his urge and instinct for survival. Was he mad, to entertain notions like these – notions of healing and helping Suzaku?

He thought about being dragged down dark halls, his limbs numb from the bondage straps. He thought about the hard and cold tile floor, looking up at his father, who'd laughed and erased him.

The lead of Lelouch's pencil broke, as he pressed too hard in his haste to take notes. Shirley jumped and whispered, "Oh! Does Lelou need to borrow mine?"

_No, Suzaku_, Lelouch decided. _I will not risk myself further – and allow myself to be despised more and mistreated – simply because your happiness may depend on my misery._

"Thank you, Shirley."

Lelouch was no self-sacrificial fool. If he had a choice in whether he needed to suffer…. Even if it was for Suzaku, Lelouch refused to throw himself into the fire. _Letting_ Suzaku demean him was daft; the only types of people who liked degrading themselves that way were…. Well, were people like Suzaku.

People who intended to _survive_ were very different.

Still, Lelouch couldn't shake the realization that there was much he would yet give in order to unburden Suzaku somewhat. As long as it didn't compromise his secrets, his own health, or his pride, why not help Suzaku grasp relief? Wasn't that better than tension at Ashford? Ashford was supposed to be Lelouch's safe haven, but lately it had become a prison.

Shirley blushed and told him he was welcome. The teacher requested they again turn their pages.

The problem was figuring out what Suzaku really wanted, outside of his hate and his dependency on Zero. Or, was it instead more a question of _need?_ What would make Suzaku smile, or laugh? Adversely, what would make him feel Lelouch had gone too far? Lelouch pondered all of this, watching Suzaku taking notes, until Suzaku glanced over, met his gaze, and promptly broke it, frowning.

Lelouch missed two lines of notes.

The frown wasn't one of Suzaku's dull, dark ones. He simply wore the kind of frown he used whenever he scolded himself, inside his own head, for a thing he enjoyed. Enjoyed, but felt that he shouldn't be doing. Lelouch had not seen that look on him for ages.

"Hmn?" Shirley blinked. "Is there something he wants to say to you, Lelouch?"

Rivalz hissed at Suzaku, under the teacher's voice, "Pass us a note, man. Let's do something awesome. These creepy emperors give me the shivers. Glad Britannia doesn't have someone as nuts as them…."

Lelouch said, "Rivalz, you've got to be joking."

"Quiet in the classroom," the teacher barked at them.

Suzaku peeked over, still wearing his frown.

Was eye contact with Lelouch so complex? Lelouch hadn't been trying to send any signals. He kept his face the picture of detached, as he continued listening to the teacher's lecture. Shirley turned red, and furiously scribbled with her back-up pencil, nodding in time to the teacher's remarks. What had gotten Suzaku so flustered?

Then Lelouch noticed. Suzaku appeared flushed in the tips of his ears. He twiddled his pencil a little too roughly, shifted in his chair a little too stiffly…. And then his firm grip on his writing utensil sharply and unfairly snapped it.

Shirley twitched. "S-Suzaku! I don't have another spare one!" Lelouch chilled, watching Suzaku set down the pieces, and Shirley twirled her carroty hair. "Boys are so careless! So careless!"

Lelouch's chill melted for something else. A hot reaction bubbled in him, stirred up by the undertones of Suzaku's body language. At first, Lelouch told himself not to believe it. Surely, he was projecting. He thought Suzaku grappled with it only because he grappled with it himself. But no, it was there. Lelouch lost focus on the classroom, while Shirley began fishing round for a pen.

Suzaku was thinking about it – attraction.

The spiral down from that conclusion felt like falling off a sky-train. Musing about their relations was one thing. Thinking and applying theory felt fine. Having the emotions in question manifest in the _party_ in question, however, now, while Lelouch only tried to concentrate…. That kind of situation asked for trouble.

Lelouch wasn't prepared to combat it, surrounded by students, mere wooden desks away from Suzaku.

Without another thought – and before the grind of his teeth grew audible – he raised his hand so the teacher would see him. He excused himself, saying he needed to use the restroom. Rivalz lifted one eyebrow. Suzaku eyed him too, but didn't stiffen or glare, or appear like he'd count to thirty, then get up and follow. Lelouch knew Suzaku still might, but right now…. He needed a place with breathing room.

Shirley muttered, "You should also find a pencil."

Lelouch said, "No use; Suzaku would break it."

Suzaku accepted Shirley's pen and smiled. "Thank you, Shirley. I don't break things if they behave well."

Lelouch left, his pulse a thunder in his ears. He needed a place distinctly free of his enemy, and also far away from the gym room with Coach Villetta.

Lelouch walked down the hall, to the bubblers. He paused in front of them, thinking in tumbles. When he felt like he was safe, he began to pace, to counter the motion of his reeling mind. If anybody asked, he'd simply make like he'd been thirsty.

_Thirsty_. Thirsty…. Yes, Lelouch was parched.

Aching for a drink of Suzaku's poison.

He finally let a noise spill from him. "Tch…!"

Lelouch pasted a hand across his Geass eye, folded his opposite arm, and strove not to mutter more notes of frustration. He would not, he could not even _consider_ using their buried attraction. For anything. Clearly it was better to crush Suzaku, destroy him.

So how come Lelouch was still thinking about it?

Some things, one just didn't do. Some lines just could not be crossed. The other night, in the garden Suzaku had erected…. Hadn't that been nothing but a twisted mockery? Lelouch remembered the way it had felt, wanting to vomit while they both pretended. The same damn thing would just happen again.

Even if _Lelouch _had felt – for half a second toward the end – a bolt of real desire waking….

Sexual desire, sexual interaction…. Intimacy was not supposed to be a toy! It was manipulative, to use their old attraction to domineer over Suzaku and fight Suzaku's suspicion. It would be equally manipulative to use it to lure Suzaku into a sense of contentment and security – reasons for wanting to do it be damned. Some lines, one just didn't cross. And really—

A different, blood-freezing thought consumed Lelouch next, so wholly that he halted between the bubblers and a poster board with the class ranks posted on it.

His hands fell limply to his sides.

He'd wondered why – when Charles had wiped his memories – there'd been a loophole. Lelouch had thought whoever had left it had either left it present out of ignorance, or of a desire to wait and see how Suzaku might employ it. But here _Lelouch _was, looking to employ it. To turn it to his advantage, by using it to craft a new status quo between himself and his worst enemy.

What if the loophole had been left for _Lelouch_, from the start? What if whoever tried to lord over him from the temple of Geass was sending him a message? Or worse, just wanting to amuse himself somehow, by watching Lelouch fall back into the trap of his own craving, watching Lelouch setting himself up to get hurt?

What if this was bait, to tempt Lelouch down an alternate path, instead of down the desperately important path of Zero?

Lelouch leaned over, with his hand braced on the wall. His other hand came up again to grip the bridge of his nose this time. His bangs drifted across his eyes.

Lelouch pulled himself and his careening thoughts together – or was it that he simply reined in all his paranoia? In any case. The passion they'd both felt was _over_. Trap or no trap, this loophole was something Lelouch should never think of touching. Yet… he couldn't take his hand off the wall, knowing there was something else that niggled. A part of himself that played the Devil's Advocate. It always did.

That part of Lelouch whispered, _But really, what's so wrong with it? Is it so wrong, if it's a thing you both desire? _It brought him back to his earlier thoughts.

If there was a piece inside each of them where the want was real, what was wrong with indulging it, so long as both of them still understood the lines between satisfying basic sexual needs and fighting hard to change the world? If they could each manage to use their physical union detachedly, for no purpose other than for gaining some relief, then they _could_ create a whole new status quo – where they received what they wanted sexually, but did not tear their minds and emotions apart. Because there'd be no real attachment in it. No adoration. No care.

And no love.

It had never been a relationship. They had never been called "lovers."

And Suzaku couldn't trample on what Lelouch was freely willing to give. If Lelouch allowed himself to be treated like Zero and hated, in order to grant Suzaku's wish for a rival, that would be stupid. But if Lelouch allowed himself to be touched and pleasured and held with those delicious hands, because he _wanted_ it, regardless of Zero…. Well, that was something completely justifiable and different. He wouldn't lose any face – especially if Suzaku wanted it, too. It'd be a level playing ground. A mutual use of each other, resulting in a partial sort of truce – a truce at least in the bedroom, where they both so desperately needed the attention.

Lelouch sighed and finally pushed off from the wall. He could imagine what C.C. would say. _I was correct, when I called you a pervert_. What about Kallen's opinion? And Shirley's? Would their visions of Lelouch change, if they knew he thought so much about sex? There had been a time Lelouch had not thought sex important. But in the face of so much pain, and death, and aggravation….

He shook his head. He didn't need to justify his natural body and its function to himself.

"Le~_louch_~!"

Lelouch jerked his head up. Waves of blonde hair caught his eye, and then the slender finger that waved at him.

"Are you becoming a delinquent again, roaming the halls when you should be in class?"

Lelouch's shoulders relaxed. He broke into a smile. "And what are _you_ doing here, Ms. President? It's okay for _you_ to roam, because you're our commander?"

"I'm on my way to a meeting with our councilors, about Suzaku's place of honor at the annual festival."

Lelouch's stomach flipped again at mention of Suzaku. "Ah," he said. "You're going to embarrass him."

"Of course!" Milly smiled, and then outright laughed. "But don't be jealous, Lelouch. You know, the one I like embarrassing the most is always you."

"You'll never mature in some ways, will you, President." A flock of birds breezed past the hallway window, airy and fleeting – like the affected teasing in Lelouch's voice.

"Hmm? Maybe not. But I'm mature in other ways." Milly winked and squeezed her arms so that her breasts plumped up together.

"President!"

Milly burst into laughter. Then, she flung an arm around him, and started to guide him down the hall. "Lelou," she said, in a mock-severe tone, "I know you can't pretend very well. Even _you_ think about intimate things. Don't hold back – who is it, then? Who's the person always on your mind?"

Several things happened at once. Lelouch ducked out from under Milly's arm. It occurred to him that _she_ was the perfect woman to speak with, assuming Lelouch ought to speak to somebody. Lelouch also realized that Milly could read him. If she could do that, then soon worse people might be able to. Should Lelouch risk himself, to prevent further risks? Should he give Milly some details, to get some weight off his chest?

"Are you going to tell me what happened that Guys' Night?"

Lelouch blushed a cherry red. He hadn't brought it up, Guys' Night, because in truth, he wasn't sure how much his friends even remembered. There was no reason for Charles to have Geassed Guys' Night away from Milly's mind, but Lelouch recalled that there had been some talk of Zero – five minutes at least, over those tangy buffalo wings. He'd found it safest to assume that Charles had wiped out the whole evening because of it… but now Lelouch knew Charles hadn't. Because of his attraction with Suzaku? Because wiping more memories took up more Geass power?

But the other reason Lelouch hadn't tried to bring up Guys' Night was because—

"Lelouch, something has changed between you two."

Lelouch looked away, taking a careful breath. "My discussion with Suzaku that night went… too well." He'd been trying to avoid letting the student council learn that he and Suzaku had gone gay for each other.

Milly said, "Oh? Well, details please? And I hope you know that really, more than tease you, I want to look out for your happiness, Lelou."

His happiness. Lelouch didn't know what his happiness consisted of any more. "Are you going to give me a magical spell?"

"Aha! So you do need one!"

Lelouch looked at Milly, and this time didn't fake his tiny smile. He was caught somewhere between exasperation and gratitude. The gratitude part made his throat constrict.

He decided to take the risk, in a slightly broken voice he didn't fake. Surely there was someone he could still trust, in this mess? Milly had always been shrewd. Genuine.

"He makes me want to hurl him on a bed and tear his clothes off."

An expression passed over Milly's wide features, something like shock, knowing… and a flash of disappointment. In the time it took him to recognize it, a different expression rose.

One that made her look like she was trying not to pee her pants.

"HAH haha ha ha ha ha, Le_louch_! Hahaha!"

She couldn't breathe. Lelouch said sharply, "President."

"A violent urge for passion, huh? You like it rough? Ahahaha! You know, that could be dangerous, considering who you're talking about!"

"Milly Ashford."

He tried to hide the crackle of his nerves. He used the voice of a prince, despite that she no longer recalled his royal status.

"I know. I know you're serious, Lelouch. I'll help you, but I just— Who is the seme?"

Lelouch blinked. "Seme?" he repeated. Her language grew ridiculous.

"You want to be with Suzaku, who's Japanese, but you don't even know the right terms you should use?"

"What do you mean, 'be with?'" She'd said _Japanese _and not _Eleven_. "All I want from him is—"

"Oh, _Lelouch_."

Milly dropped everything but her concern. It stopped Lelouch cold, the way she seemed to let a mask drop, in which he could see clearly into her soul.

They were similar people, weren't they.

"I do believe Suzaku's worth it. I do. But is he what you need? Won't you please consider Shirley Fennette?"

Lelouch's heart pounded. "No. Shirley's too—" _Precious. _Lelouch had been about to call her "precious."

He still cared for Shirley. She was his close friend. Involvement with him would just bring Shirley down. The carnal lust of the equation cast aside, it came down to the fact that Suzaku Kururugi could survive the perils that came with Lelouch better than Shirley ever could.

He didn't complete his sentence, or make up excuses. Let Milly fill the gaps the way she wanted. Lelouch stood under her stare – she had her hand posed on her chin – and allowed her to look thoughtful, assessing what he wanted.

"You really want to sleep with him?"

"Seduce him. Seduction is where I'll be headed." If Lelouch chose to do this, he'd have to move from the beginning again.

"What a coy Vice President."

Lelouch said nothing.

"Just promise me something."

Milly, extracting promises? She didn't often do so. Not unless they were ludicrous ones, designed for her own fun-fulfillment.

Lelouch motioned for her to keep talking. His heart thudded hard in his chest.

"Don't hurt him, Lelouch. Whatever he's done, Suzaku is a good boy deep at heart."

Her face was so serious that it gave Lelouch another chill. He wanted to respond, _You don't know him any more_.

He didn't need to. Milly changed her look. "After all, I am the mother of this bunch. I can't allow my children to fight, even over something fun like huge sexual tension."

Lelouch didn't comment that she made it sound like incest.

"I'll help you, Lelouch. For the sake of the council. And in return, I expect you to look out for their wellbeing, too."

"I've always done that." Lelouch really, always had.

Milly held a finger to her lip, outlining a plan. "All right then. Go to the rooftop, at the end of the festival. You both like it up there, I've noticed? During the dancing, I'll send Suzaku up. He'll be all for you. I'll send him with _ideas_." Lelouch flushed at the way she pronounced it. "Then you can take the plan over from there."

* * *

Lelouch was glad he'd turned his back. Even near-foolproof plans could collapse.

"Big brother? Is it really you?" The voice came high-strung over the phone.

_Milly,_ Lelouch thought, as his lungs forgot they ought to work like bellows, _I don't know what you told Suzaku, but this isn't how I wanted it to go._

It wasn't Milly's fault, Lelouch knew. Suzaku had done this on his own.

Lelouch forgot all ideas he'd developed about healing Suzaku, and made his next moves – as calmly as he could under the pressure. He told Nunnally how much he loved her, and watched Rolo leave after counting the seconds.

Lelouch plotted retaliation.

He told Suzaku, in a sharp tone, "Let's go to my bedroom, before you make more people call me. There's something I'd like to discuss there, in private."

Suzaku frowned. Lelouch knew why.

He'd never spent time in Lelouch's bedroom.

It smacked of suggestion, a setting like that. But C.C. didn't live there any more, so Lelouch could use the bedroom for suggestion if he wanted.

He did want to. Evilly. Right now, specifically to make the situation more uncomfortable.

Suzaku tailed him down the stairs, and through the halls, and into his dark quarters. They stopped in the center of the space; Lelouch had turned on only one small, dim light. Suzaku's gaze flicked from Lelouch's clean desk, to his firmly locked wardrobe, to his neatly made bed.

His gaze settled next on Lelouch, unimpressed. "The new viceroy has a sweet personality, but a double handicap. The public will learn more later, but I think she'll be good for Area 11's—"

"The viceroy isn't important right now."

Every ounce of blood in Lelouch boiled. There would be _no more using Nunnally_. His knees wanted to buckle – his sister was alive – but she ought not to be treated like an ace Suzaku could pull. He would change the subject.

Suzaku monitored him. "You don't want to discuss her?"

"No. Why would I?" Lelouch snapped. "You just made a fool of me in front of her! Suzaku, I shouldn't even be _speaking_ to the viceroy. Whatever you're playing at, I'm getting sick of it. And you." He gripped the bridge of his nose between his fingers, in a grasp after control that was genuine. Through the fringe of his bangs, he watched Suzaku's expression darken. Tense, as if he prepared for attack.

Suzaku just might get one, if he wanted.

"You think you can maneuver me, Suzaku," Lelouch accused, tartly, lowering his voice, "but you can't. _That's _what I prefer to talk about. You're treating me like a criminal lately; if you think I can't sense it, you're insulting my intelligence. Surely you don't think I've started cheating on you? Courting Shirley? It's like you suspect me of having killed your cat, but instead of finding evidence, you want to force me to confess it. What have I done, Suzaku, to deserve it? My own best friend looks at me these days like I'm someone else."

Lelouch had been waiting to spring this confession. He'd saved it up – for just such a situation. A situation when Suzaku started with the upper hand.

"You figured it out?" Suzaku lacked real expression.

Lelouch concealed his outrage and surprise. "Yes. Who do you think I am?"

He gave Suzaku a beat, to register the double meaning. He added, "Do you take me for an idiot? Suzaku – you're the object of my darkest desire. I can tell when you're acting too strangely. You can't even touch me any more. When I said, 'take it slow' for you, I wasn't thinking 'like molasses.'"

The best way to defer suspicion was to flip it around – make the suspecter into the suspected. The words _darkest desire_ had a clear affect as well. Suzaku swallowed, then looked at Lelouch's window curtains.

"What is it, Suzaku? What do you think I've done? Has it occurred to you that all this might be hurting me? It's upsetting, to see you cold and distant. If _you're_ the one who's hiding something, better to admit it." He inserted the hint of a plead in his tone.

This time, however, it did not have an effect. No guilt leaked into Suzaku's eyes.

Damn. Lelouch had to play this game right. After all, Suzaku used _Nunnally_. If he failed, it grew possible that she—

"Lelouch, I think you might be Zero."

Lelouch stared at Suzaku, openly stunned. Was Suzaku completely crazy? What might this do to their pretended friendship? An innocent Lelouch would find an accusation like that so annoying.

"No," Suzaku stated, "that isn't accurate. I think you _are_ Zero, and you're lying to my face. Right now."

Lelouch's command of himself fiercely wavered. His voice shot octaves higher than it normally was – but he still pretended calm. "Have they mangled your brain, in all that military testing?"

Suzaku remained looking corpse-like and heartless. "That confirms it."

His voice was so sure Lelouch almost believed it.

He took a step backward, to make like his head reeled. "Are you serious? You think _I'm_ Zero? Hah – is that why I just talked to the viceroy?" Suzaku answered nothing, gave Lelouch nothing to work with. "Does the viceroy know who Zero really is? What, was my talk with her meant to confirm it? Don't make me laugh, Suzaku. How obnoxious. You know me better than anyone! What proof have you had, that would make you think I'm Zero?"

"You're very good at pretending, Lelouch."

Lelouch paused. He didn't have to fake his fear. He did his best to transform it into hubris. "Oh? And what will you do if I am? Don't you know that what you're spewing is nonsense?"

"Yes. But it's also the truth. It's more than you ever gave me." Suzaku started to walk toward him, calmly, with the poise of a stealth-killer.

Lelouch backed into the desk behind him. He had never planned for direct, open accusation. He hadn't believed that Suzaku would dare. After all, if Suzaku accused his best friend, and Lelouch was innocent…. Surely Suzaku knew it would sow discord between them? For Suzaku to accuse him like this meant Suzaku had thrown even the _chance_ of renewed friendship out the window. It meant Suzaku didn't care any more – not even a little. It meant perhaps he never had.

Perhaps he'd just faked his attraction, to build up Lelouch's sense of security.

The blow struck Lelouch in his pride. His fear expanded; he needed to redouble his efforts, if he wanted to escape this confrontation still unscathed.

Suzaku stepped up to him, emerald eyes glassy. "I plan to arrest you, in the name of the Emperor. Will you come, or do I have to drag you?"

Drag him. In bondage, like he had last time? Lelouch became icy. How dare he, _how dare_ Suzaku! They looked at each other – the predator, the fatally-snared prey – and something in Lelouch clicked into place at last.

Why had he ever bothered with Suzaku? To think he could still make Suzaku his own knight! Lelouch was Zero – and Zero used pawns best. Pawns were controlled, they did not do controlling. Suzaku would never get away with this.

Lelouch began to laugh – a laugh that cracked him open.

Suzaku stood there and watched the laugh bubble, not even bothering with a reaction.

"_Suzaku!_" cried Lelouch, sharply – and with a low, resonating command. "You have either gone completely mad, or your tastes are stranger than I once imagined!" He had a new plan. He'd put it to action.

Suzaku waited for Lelouch to complete his new performance.

"If you have some sort of buried, secret desire for the figure of Zero, and you wanted to use it inside the bedroom, you should have just told me, don't you agree?"

Suzaku's eyes shot open wide. Lelouch worked wildly to control his murderous grin.

He'd had to scrabble, but he'd managed to do it. Come up with something Suzaku could not conquer.

Suzaku took a moment to recompose himself, and then he said, his voice grating, "That's twisted."

"Hah – _I'm _twisted? You implied it."

_How's this, President?_ Lelouch thought, unsteady on his feet. _How is _this _game, for beginning seduction?_

Lelouch felt sick, but he played on, knowing that if he didn't, he'd only become cornered. "It might be unhealthy, to have such obsessions. But if you want to explore them, who am I to argue? I'm sorry if I didn't quickly catch your blaring signals. I didn't foresee that your rivalry with Zero would translate into frustrations that then transcended into bedroom desires."

Lelouch ignored the quaking of Suzaku's callused fingers.

"Role play! I see. _This _is how to de-stress you."

Suzaku's scowl – his radiating outrage – nearly started flames, until he could have burned down Ashford. Searing, ash-thick fires smoldered in him. Lelouch wanted to laugh again, and increasingly louder.

Instead, he touched Suzaku's lower stomach. Suzaku hissed and made to snatch his hand. Before he could, Lelouch walked his fingers languidly up Suzaku's chest.

His touch hovered right over Suzaku's heart. Lelouch leaned in and whispered, "Kururugi Suzaku." He used Zero's deeply ringing voice. "Would you sleep with me, and help me bring this world to justice?"

Suzaku made a noise like breaking plaster – dry, like buildings crumbling – while Lelouch serenely and smartly retreated.

In case Suzaku tried to kill him.

Lelouch smiled. "How was that?" he uttered, feigning fascination. "You know, Milly has been helping with my acting. There's part of our next festival—"

Suzaku lost his slim grip on control. In one swift move that made Lelouch's balance tilt, Suzaku forced him hard against the desk.

His strength made Lelouch's survival instinct kick in. Lelouch wondered if this was what it felt like, being slave to a Geass that made someone 'live.'

Lelouch said, mercilessly, and rather coyly, "We don't have a safe word set up yet; you really shouldn't."

"You are beyond guarantees of your safety." The words were a hiss, from the mouth a snake.

"Oh?" Lelouch paused. "Oh, Suzaku. Admit it. You desperately, _desperately_ want to fuck him." Another beat passed. "Is it the mask? The cape?"

Suzaku backhanded Lelouch in the face.

Pain exploded, the way Knightmare Frames did when the Guren Mk-II attacked them.

Lelouch reflected that perhaps he'd been too coarse. He wasn't sure how his head had snapped around – so that now he gazed in double-vision at the floor – and therefore he stayed there a little bit longer, regaining composure. Suzaku lowered his arm.

Suzaku announced, "I'm not attracted to Zero."

The words were jagged, tart, and hard. The message was for the awakened Zero, for Lelouch here, in front of him.

Lelouch straightened against the desk. He didn't look at Suzaku, for fear he would find something on the desk's surface with which to slit Suzaku's throat. He'd do it.

"Need I remind you, again… that in these situations… people usually use safe words? Even if it's role play, hitting me is unacceptable. If this isn't role play, convince me _why_ I must be Zero. The accusations you just made have not been taken lightly."

The first hint of confliction zipped across Suzaku's face, like summer lightning, looking like it faintly prickled. Suzaku swallowed. He backed off.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a cool, neutral tone.

Lelouch understood god damn well that Suzaku was _not_ sorry. Not whatsoever. He dug his claws into Suzaku's flash of hesitation and twisted. He thought, _I'll _make _you sorry, then._

"I'm not Zero. That is utterly impossible. If you insist on doing this to me, I hate to think of how it would affect our arrangement."

"Arrangement?" Suspicion high in Suzaku's eyes.

"This one," Lelouch said, taking Suzaku by the hips the way Suzaku often did him.

Suzaku let him, making a face like his skull had become the inside of a hive. Lelouch traced the hem of Suzaku's uniform.

"Don't tell me I'm second to some dramatic, masked vigilante. I don't think I can stand it, Suzaku."

Suzaku returned the loose embrace, thoughtlessly, closing his grip on Lelouch's narrow waist. His mind grappled with something else, Lelouch could tell. It finally showed on Suzaku's face.

At least that was a small improvement. Lelouch, becoming unbearably weary, made his last wild decision.

Their loophole. He'd use it. What other options did Lelouch have left, other than making a choice that exploited it?

He let his hand slip to Suzaku's cold cheek. Suzaku started; he tried to draw away.

Lelouch didn't let him. He held those green eyes. "Why," he began, wearily, "do you want so badly for me to be Zero?"

Suzaku's voice broke. He uttered, "I don't."

"Then isn't it enough, to trust me when I tell you _I'm not him?_ I don't want to be Zero to you, either. I don't want to role play him." He traced the well-formed bone that ran beneath Suzaku's cheek.

Suzaku's grip at Lelouch's waist tightened.

Lelouch next traced Suzaku's jaw. "Why do you make me put up with your mood swings?"

"Lelouch, they aren't swings. It's the life of a soldier. The life of someone plagued by work of Zero."

"Who is not here," Lelouch annunciated. He wondered again if Suzaku would cry. "You know, you're letting work get in the way of perfectly good recreation."

"I'm— I'm eliminating distractions that get in the way of my work and my advancement. I'm trying so hard, for everyone's sake. I really do want to become Knight of One."

"It's a noble aim. If it works, you will have triumphed. But _I_ don't have to be one of your distractions." Lelouch began to lean in, tempting. "Or, if I am, I'd like to be one of the good ones."

Suzaku's troubled eyes got caught on the lips Lelouch had deliberately passed his tongue over.

"Lelouch—"

Lelouch stretched a hand into the space between their brushing hips. "I've told you before to let me take the burden off you. Any more of this, Suzaku, and you'll snap…." He ran his hand against a quite suggestive area.

Suzaku stiffened. "Don't, Lelouch."

"You'd like this from me, though, wouldn't you?" His hand began stroking, and Suzaku groaned.

Just like that, Lelouch made use of loopholes – hiding his fury behind more walls of passion. Suzaku let out one more frustrated sound.

_If Zero can't stand you, I'll prove Lelouch can. I'll give you every inch of me, and take every inch back, Suzaku. _I_ will be the person in control_.

Suzaku would never take him by surprise like that again.

Suzaku's breath grew ragged, and his protests quickly slowed. Lelouch held him close, with an iron-clamp grip – working his arm, not allowing Suzaku to pull away. He guided, so that Suzaku rocked hips against his hand. He dropped little words of affection and encouragement.

"Yes, Suzaku, just like that. Come closer, ah—you're getting hard…."

_I'm going to leave you a beautiful mess. Suzaku, I'll use you. I'm going to _win_._

What had he been thinking, about mutual sexual use? Truces? Agreement? Lelouch cared nothing for Suzaku's emotions, or his side of the equation, or his wellbeing any more. Who cared if Suzaku's heart became twisted, or if he grew unhealthy from so much manipulation? Suzaku had put _himself_ in this fool position.

When this night was over, Suzaku would never, ever think again that Lelouch recalled being Zero. That was all that mattered.

"Lelouch, it's too much. Not right here. Not yet. I'm—"

Lelouch murmured that Suzaku had to be kidding. "To ask me to stop, when you've gotten like this?"

He did a thing he'd never done. He tugged down Suzaku's boxer-briefs, and looked coolly on the part of his once-friend that was reacting so desperately to his touches.

He turned them both around, so that Suzaku leaned on the desk. Suzaku began breathing erratically, squeezing the desk edge and trying to keep purchase.

Lelouch stroked his hand once along Suzaku's bare length, feeling a thrill when Suzaku bit his lip to stifle a groan. Green eyes brimmed still with confliction. And with lust.

Lelouch had never done these things, and this was not how he'd intended to learn them. In a low, careful murmur, he bid Suzaku trust him, and asked Suzaku to sit down in the dimly yellow lamplight. When Suzaku had half-collapsed into Lelouch's desk chair, Lelouch stood back and stripped out of his Ashford uniform. He conceded to himself that engagement of this sort could be worse. He should attempt to bear it.

The orchestra music from the festival below accompanied his movements, and Suzaku watched him undress, appearing flushed and fascinated. Once in a while, though, too, there was hatred. Apprehension. Self-loathing.

Lelouch would erase it. He wondered if that made him 'seme' or not, and then he didn't care; he helped Suzaku take off his clothes as well.

Just the clothes on top. Lelouch wanted to leave them with their pants. He let Suzaku keep _his_ pants down a bit, around his thighs, away from his weeping erection – but Lelouch staunchly kept his own pants on. He didn't want to expose everything. Not yet. He caught sight of Suzaku's bare torso and heated.

Not just yet, because tonight was about Suzaku.

He leaned over Suzaku in the chair, so their naked shoulders brushed, and so Lelouch could reach Suzaku with a hoarse, enticing whisper. "This has taken us too long."

"Lelouch. My God, we shouldn't even do it." Suzaku flinched, as Lelouch hovered over his chair, seeming to know his protests were late. Senseless.

"Why not, if it's something we both want?" He nuzzled Suzaku's inviting ear.

"Are you sure we really want it?" Suzaku's smooth voice cracked.

Lelouch felt stricken. Nauseated.

Much too late to turn back now.

"Don't talk nonsense; of course I really want you. And I think _this_ point speaks for itself." Lelouch did not wait any more; he closed his hand firmly around Suzaku's erection.

"Ah—!"

He tried not to let Suzaku's gasping excite him.

Lelouch wasn't sure if he would feel awkward, degraded, or simply like a woman performing her man's service, pleasuring Suzaku this way. Lelouch stayed standing behind Suzaku's chair, leaning down, feeling Suzaku's erection throb against his steady palm. Lelouch watched his charge turning flush – and finally something carnal in Lelouch snapped into place.

In truth, Lelouch had never felt more male than he did now, with Suzaku gripped securely in his hand.

"I'm flattered, Suzaku," he murmured, deciding he'd enjoy the process fully.

His long, pale fingers wrapped around. Lelouch took possession of the part of Suzaku that gave him all will and control. Lelouch's wrist moved easily, from the place he hovered. He squeezed just enough, and slowly pumped. Exhilarating, to feel Suzaku swell that much more.

Lelouch made sure to slide his grip all the way to Suzaku's base, and pause to run his thumb against his tip on the way up. Suzaku felt so full, and so poised in his grip, and Lelouch swiftly found a rhythm that was steady.

"Lelouch, _Lelouch_… We—ah, aahn—!"

The thick feel of him, and the way his hand fit, and that first deep reaction of vocals….

Lelouch sharply heated. He picked up his pacing, working his fingers to vary the pressure. Suzaku's hips began to twist and jerk; Lelouch enjoyed watching them rise to his provocation. Soon Suzaku tensed and sought more of his hand.

Lelouch wanted to make Suzaku fall apart, make him truly buck, make him start to piston those sleek hips into Lelouch's smooth, attentive hand. Lelouch's eyes seemed unable to look anywhere else – nowhere now but at Suzaku's hips, and at his straining, ready member. Perfectly, appealingly formed, all of him. Had Lelouch known he would think these things, even now, after Suzaku's betrayal?

Lelouch's breathing became a bit short, while Suzaku worked and rocked into his hand. All Suzaku's subtle gasps, his groans…. They fueled Lelouch's ardor and turned him to a furnace, before he could control it. His skin burned; he felt his cheeks radiate heat, so much heat that he suddenly felt dizzy.

Lightheaded, as Suzaku's length continued mesmerizing him. Lelouch's lips remained parted. He wanted to lick them so they wouldn't chap, but one moment lost, one move not for Suzaku now threatened to throw Lelouch out of his rhythm. And rhythm, that rhythm. It made pleasure _burn_.

He wanted to drown Suzaku in waves of satisfaction.

Suzaku wasn't desperate. Not yet. But all too suddenly, Lelouch realized _he_ was.

Yes, Lelouch was – feeling Suzaku inside his hand, picturing that length of him in other, tighter places. He ached; he felt unhinged, and wild, and he made an instinctive, sudden, rough decision.

"Lelouch—?"

Lelouch moved around in front. He dropped to his knees.

Suzaku looked weak, uncomprehending – basted with a sheen of sweat that made him glisten and Lelouch want hard to moan. He pushed Suzaku's thighs apart.

Suzaku realized what Lelouch was about. "Wait. You shouldn't—"

"Let me," Lelouch uttered. "Let me."

If Suzaku refused, Lelouch feared what he'd be driven to do.

He took Suzaku into his mouth.

First, just the tip, that he ringed with his lips, while twirling his tongue there so Suzaku shivered. The act made pleasure roll in Lelouch's chest, and resonate somewhere else he only half acknowledged. Suzaku didn't taste like Lelouch would have thought – bitter, or acidy, or anything like that. Lelouch took a moment, getting used to the flavor, feeling that thickness slide against his tongue. Something fairly mild, maybe soft – like Suzaku himself had been, back when they were innocent. When he wasn't piloting a Knightmare frame, or hating Lelouch, or trying to kill him.

Lelouch dipped his head, and took Suzaku's whole length – in increments – into his mouth. And Lelouch didn't struggle with it; it didn't feel hard to do. Suzaku was certainly big, and thick – but tantalizingly, satisfyingly so. Lelouch thought holding him this way felt natural. He grew twice as turned on. He slid off Suzaku, and then back, running his tongue along that length and feeling crazy.

He choked on a moan. He'd _wanted this._ He hadn't known how much until now.

Suzaku's teeth sank into the flesh on the back of his wrist, like dull knives, and he bucked. His face was splashed with pleasure, pain, while Lelouch sucked, and slurped, and kept glancing up. Whatever Suzaku saw when Lelouch met his glance made him groan, so Lelouch held eye contact again.

He licked indecently up the underside of Suzaku's length, keeping his hand rubbing against Suzaku's base, and it made Suzaku bite his wrist twice as hard.

But no sound. Lelouch couldn't take it. He pulled off.

"Don't be silent," he gasped. Suzaku understood, but shook his head, and sealed his eyes back up and bit down more. "Suzaku. Rolo's outside with the others. His room isn't even near here. There's no need to hold back."

"Lelouch—you don't understand—"

The protest was what Lelouch had waited for.

"Nnh—aah!"

Suzaku, caught off guard, was not prepared for the slick return of Lelouch's mouth upon his erection. He couldn't stem his waterfall of sounds. "Mn, _mmn_—ah! Aaahn—_Lelouch_—!"

Lelouch felt like he floated, dizzy, as everything in him was wiped out by lust. He licked and sucked, and moaned himself, when Suzaku wound fingers into his hair. He didn't care about Geass, or Zero – just give him this reckless and pleasure-wracked Suzaku.

Suzaku, writhing under his command. Suzaku, making Lelouch ache for some deeper form of union, for equality inside their wanton situation, compensation. He realized, vaguely horrified, that he himself had grown erect; Lelouch strained at his Ashford pants, his own want now a sharp, painful affliction.

Suzaku cried out again, and Lelouch pulled off, slickly pumping instead with his free hand.

With his other hand, he tugged Suzaku down – by the neck, so their lips met. Suzaku couldn't control his side of the kiss while Lelouch was still pumping. The exchange of teeth and tongues was wet, and sloppy, and everything Lelouch had never, ever been, but everything he so violently required of Suzaku, and then—

Suzaku went rigid, and then absolutely _wild_ in Lelouch's hand. Before he could release, Lelouch let Suzaku's neck go, and sucked with his mouth on Suzaku's solid length. Suzaku spilled over, a slippery mess – against Lelouch's tongue, his lips – so that Lelouch slurped and moaned and finally swallowed.

Suzaku looked down at him in surprise, eyes pleasure-clouded. He hadn't missed the difference.

"Y…you didn't have to—"

"Don't talk, Suzaku."

Lelouch said it breathlessly, rocking back on his heels… because they'd finished, and he wasn't sure now how to act. He mimicked the way Suzaku slumped, as if he were an entity quite boneless.

His body felt hot. His head still reeled. He realized – feeling slightly sick yet somehow satisfied – how intensely he had loved that. How deliciously intense—

He trembled, wanting to do that to Suzaku over again.

Suzaku said, "I—"

"It's late. You should go back." The orchestra had long stopped playing. "If there's anybody still here," Lelouch went on, "they're going to want to see the Knight of Seven."

What had Lelouch done? He'd gone and done this, and he'd _liked it_. More than he could possibly have imagined he would like it. Even in his most private dreams, back when he and Suzaku were truly intimate, he hadn't realized it would feel quite like _this_ when bigger things actually happened.

Lelouch hadn't been able to put it aside when he _did _realize! Even after getting slapped across the face, even after being made to speak to Nunnally. What was going to become of them? Cursed, awful, damned attraction….

Suzaku watched Lelouch as Lelouch tried to sort his thoughts. Then Suzaku got up. He buttoned on his shirt and told Lelouch, "I'm overwhelmed."

Lelouch didn't have energy left to analyze what the sentence meant. Whether it was genuine, whether his plan had worked, or whether this was the Suzaku who still felt grim suspicion.

Suzaku completed the rest of his statement. "If I go out there, everyone is going to know I just received the most fantastic blow job."

Lelouch flushed, his eyes overblown, and then he almost chuckled.

Almost. He said instead to Suzaku, "Then just don't show it to them. Put on a mask."

Suzaku was the one to chuckle then. "Can't. I bet it's all over my face, so much that it would show despite whatever lies I told them." He walked with his jacket in hand, to where Lelouch still sat upon the ground.

Lelouch didn't know if he wanted to scream, cackle, or sob at that damnable wording. Were those words innocent, sincere? Meant to stab? Meant to be another threat? Lelouch swallowed his conflicting emotions.

He smirked, running along with Suzaku's joke. "I can think of other things I'd like to see all over your face—"

Suzaku leaned down and kissed him.

Lelouch lost himself for a long, dreary instant. When Suzaku drew back, Lelouch decided that at least right now, Suzaku would not sneak into his room come bedtime and savagely try to arrest him. As for the rest, Lelouch would have to wait and see.

"Watch the viceroy's speech tomorrow."

_Oh, Suzaku_, _why do we have to do this?_

"Do I have a choice?" Lelouch replied, wryly. "The whole school has to watch it at assembly. Come visit me again, if they let you take off work."

Over and over, was this what would happen? Was the only thing Lelouch achieved an ever-more painful web of deception?

Suzaku left his bedroom like a cat, quietly, the only sound the clicking doorknob in his wake. Lelouch tried his best to climb to his feet.

He ran the longest, coldest shower of his life, refusing to touch himself no matter how he burned to. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't, he wouldn't. Even though he thought about green eyes, and holding Suzaku in his mouth….

* * *

_**Author Note:** Oho~. Who does everyone prefer as seme, in the end? Lelouch? Suzaku? Or do we like it equal? Hmn, what's that? What am _I_ going to do, as the writer of this story? Ahaha~ should I even tell you?_


End file.
